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"*«    ^ooDEN  Horse 


OR 


AMERICA  MENACED  BY 
A  PRUSSIANIZED  TRADE 


BY 


DEBTS  PICKETT 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  .^-  ^.%         CINCINNATI 

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The  Wooden  Horse  --^<^^ 

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America  Menaced  by  a  'V 53 

Prussianized  Trade  I  0  \(t 


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BY 


DEETS  PICKETT 

Research  Secretary r^oard  of  Tempeiance, 

Prohibition,  and  Public  Morals  of  the 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  191 8,  by 
DEBTS    PICKETT 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

Page 

I.  A  Clarion  Call 5 

11.  Destiny  Knocks  at  the  Door 6 

III.  Rivers  of  Money  Running  to  Waste  9 

IV.  Drink,  Where  Are  Our  Men?    ....  15 

V.  The  Mills  of  the  God  Mars 22 

VI.   "Lick  the  Plate,  and  We'll  Lick 

THE  Kaiser" 29 

VII.  The  Railways  and  Ships 36 

VIII.  Prince  Henry's  Conspiracy 40 

IX.  Beer — The  International  Brute.  .  53 

X.  Our  Allies 69 

XI.  That  America  May  Be  Strong 79 

XII.  The  Call  of  the  Crisis 85 

XIII.  Lest  Haply  We  Should  be  Found 

Fighting  Against  God 88 


A  CLARION  CALL 

Sir  David  Beatty  is  now  admiral  of  the  great 
British  fighting  fleet.  When  the  German  High 
Seas  Fleet  came  into  the  open  off  Jutland,  Beatty 
found  them.  He  had  under  his  command  four 
lightly  armored,  big-gunned  battle  cruisers.  With 
these  four  ships  he  seized  the  entire  German 
navy  in  a  fighting  grip,  and  altho  his  losses  were 
heavy,  he  held  them  until  the  British  fleet  arrived. 

The  following  clarion  call  to  Britain  was  voiced 
by  Sir  David,  that  true  son  of  the  bull-dog  breed : 

''Surely  the  i\lmighty  God  does  not  intend  this 
war  to  be  just  a  hideous  fracas,  a  bloody,  drunken 
orgy?  There  must  be  a  purpose  in  it;  improve- 
ment must  come  out  of  it. 

"In  that  direction  France  has  already  shown 
us  the  way,  and  has  risen  out  of  her  ruined  cities 
with  a  revived  religion  that  is  most  wonderful. 

"England  still  remains  to  be  taken  out  of  the 
stupor  of  self-satisfaction  and  complacency  in 
which  her  flourishing  condition  has  steeped  her, 
and  until  she  can  be  stirred  out  of  this  condition, 
until  religious  revival  takes  place  at  home,  just 
so  long  will  the  war  continue. 

"When  she  can  look  on  the  future  with  humbler 
eyes  and  a  prayer  on  her  lips,  then  we  can  begin 
to  count  the  days  toward  the  end." 

What  England  needed  then,  we  need  to-day. 


II 

DESTINY  KNOCKS  AT  THE  DOOR 

Eight  months  ago  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica was  faced  by  the  necessity  of  skulking  hke 
a  whipped  hound  to  its  kennel  or  accepting  war. 
The  American  people  elected  war. 

Since  that  fateful  Good  Friday,  decision  after 
decision  has  rushed  upon  us  with  earth-shaking 
step.  To-day  we  see  with  appalling  clearness 
that  upon  us  falls  the  duty  of  supplying  the  ir- 
resistible force  which  is  needed  to  crush  the 
legions  of  Germany  and  yield  the  victory  which 
cannot  be  gained  by  any  agency  except  the  army 
in  the  field. 

Russia,  mad  with  the  weed  of  spurious  liberty, 
seems  intent  only  upon  ''forty  acres  and  a  mule 
for  every  mujik."  Italy,  Serbia,  Roumania,  with 
thin  industrial  organizations,  do  not  seem  able 
to  cope  with  the  barbarian.  The  French  can  beat 
him.  The  liritish  can  beat  him.  iUit  their  vic- 
tories are  scanty  and  aUtTmic.  We  must  add  to 
the  demonstrated  superiority  of  the  Briton  and 
the  Frenchman,  the  crushing,  not-to-be-defied 
might  of  a  nation  which  has  cleansed  itself  of  all 
weakness. 

We  have  to  defeat  veteran  armies  and  it  will 
require  millions  of  men.  ( )ur  soldiers,  trained 
in  abstinence,  must  be  backed  by  four  times  their 
number  of  laborers,  likewise  unhampered  by 
drink  weakness.  The  ships  to  move  men  and 
supplies  must  be  forthcoming  in  numbers  here- 
tofore believed  impossible  to  produce.  The  vast 
sums  of  money  demanded  must  be  insured  by  the 
elimination  of  waste.  The  precious  fuel  and 
precious  food,  the  essential  tonnage  of  transporta- 
6 


DESTINY  KNOCKS  AT  THE  DOOR 

tion  must  be  found  by  the  very  limit  of  production 
and  conservation. 

Clear  as  the  noonday  is  the  fact  that  this 
war  might  have  been  over  but  for  the  same 
spirit  that  has  insisted  upon  toleration  of 
drink.  We,  the  Allies,  have  despised  the 
margins  of  victory.  Because  drink  robbed 
us  of  the  labor  of  only  a  few  hundred  thou- 
sand men,  we  thought  we  could  tolerate  it. 
Because  it  seized  the  food  of  only  a  few  mil- 
lions, we  felt  that  we  could  take  a  chance. 
But  we  have  seen  the  bitter  days  when  a  little 
more  food,  a  little  more  man-power,  a  little 
more  transportation  and  a  few  more  ships 
might  have  pushed  us  across  the  goal  line  of 
victory.  And  the  needed  margin  of  victory 
remembered  our  contempt  and  mocked  our 
distress. 

America  should  not  fight  this  war  another  day 
with  the  drink  traffic  hanging  to  its  arm.  Any- 
thing less  than  the  elimination  of  all  preventable 
disease,  all  preventable  waste,  all  preventable 
weakness  from  the  war  program  will  be  a  degra- 
dation of  the  nation's  place  and  spirit.  No  one 
asks  that  war  prohibition  be  considered  except 
in  the  light  of  war's  necessities.  If  it  will  help 
us  win  safety  for  Democracy  and  security  for  our 
homes,  we  should  have  it.  If  it  will  not,  we 
should  not  demand  it.  No  honest  and  intelligent 
man  can  consider  the  simple  facts  and  doubt  that 
it  would  help  us  to  win.  IMillions  of  men  believe 
that  we  cannot  win  without  it. 

While  we  stop  to  drink,  the  rape  of  Belgium 
is  being  consummated  and  the  rape  of  America 
is  being  planned.  Every  glass  of  beer  is  mixed 
with  the  blood  of  our  soldiers ;  every  glass  of 
whisky  is  distilled  from  the  heart  contents  of 
men  who  are  hanging  their  bodies  upon  barbed 
wire  and  plunging  thru  the  hell  of  the  barrage  for 
us. 

What  is  the  greatest  destroyer  of  food? 
DRINK! 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

What  is  the  greatest  destroyer  of  labor? 
DRINK! 

What  is  the  greatest  destroyer  of  financial 
strength?     DRINK! 

What  is  imperiling  our  ship-building  pro- 
gram, helping  the  submarines,  congesting  our 
railways,  docks  and  warehouses,  prolonging 
the  war,  and  costing  us  unnumbered  precious 
lives  and  billions  of  money?     DRINK! 


Ill 


RIVERS  OF  MONEY  RUNNING  TO 
WASTE 

Probably  you  will  meet  with  a  smile  the  state- 
ment that  America  is  spending  $2,438,037,985.50 
each  year  for  drink.  The  people  have  no  realiza- 
tion of  this  fact. 

What  is  the  relation  of  that  appalling  waste 
to  the  successful  conduct  of  the  war  ? 

Money  is  the  first  warrior  to  the  front  in  any 
conflict.  Before  men  or  munitions  must  come 
the  raising  of  vast  sums  of  money.  The  first 
step  of  the  American  government  in  this  war 
was  the  floating  of  a  two-billion-dollar  loan  and 
the  introduction  of  a  bill  to  increase  taxes  by  as 
much  more. 

By  cutting  off  our  expenditure  for  drink 
we  could  have  taken  care  of  that  first  great 
Liberty  Loan  and  could  have  bought  a  fleet 
w^ith  the  change.  If  the  drink  expenditure 
for  1917  had  been  wiped  out,  every  family  in 
the  United  States  could  have  purchased  $100 
of  the  Loan. 

Possibly  the  drink  expenditure  would  not  have 
been  invested  in  the  war  loan.  But  certainly  one 
of  three  things  would  have  been  done  with  it. 
It  would  ( I )  have  been  spent  for  Liberty  Bonds ; 
(2)  would  have  been  spent  in  the  promotion  of 
legitimate  industry;  (3)  would  have  been  spent 
for  legitimate  commodities. 

'  If  it  had  been  invested  in  the  war  loan,  the  in- 
vestor would  have  benefited,  and  the  govern- 
ment would  have  profited.  If  it  had  been  in- 
vested in  the  promotion  of  legitimate  business, 
9 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

the  whole  structure  of  industry  would  have  been 
strengthened;  the  stock  and  bond  market  would 
have  been  sustained;  there  would  have  been  an 
abundance  of  capital  for  the  making  of  extensions 
necessary  to  the  handling  of  war  orders ;  and  we 
would  have  insured  that  "business  as  usual," 
which  is  one  of  the  essentials  of  national  power. 
If  it  had  been  spent  for  legitimate  commodities, 
we  would  have  turned  into  the  channels  of  legiti- 
mate trade  a  vivifying  force  equal  to  our  entire 
outgoing  foreign  trade.  The  raising  of  taxes 
would  have  been  immediately  facilitated. 

During  this  war  the  South  has  afforded  us  a 
startling  illustration  of  the  effect  which  is  pro- 
duced by  a  relatively  small  access  of  prosperity. 
In  1914  the  cotton  crop  sold  for  $750.000,000 — 
and  the  South  was  in  distress.  Individuals  were 
harangued  to  ''buy  a  bale"  and  hold  it  till  normal 
prices  were  reestablished.  The  poorer  farmers, 
especially  the  Xegro  farmers,  actually  lacked 
food  and  clothing.  In  19 16  the  cotton  crop  sold 
for  $1,250,000,000,  only  $500,000,000  more.  But 
that  $500,000,000  made  all  the  difference  between 
dire  poverty  and  abounding  prosperity.  The 
Negroes  who  had  been  hungry  were  buying  small 
automobiles.  The  Southern  industrial  establish- 
ments readily  found  that  "last  ten  per  cent" 
which  represents  productive  capital.  Laborers 
whose  wives  had  been  glad  to  wear  brogans  in 
1914  brought  their  families  into  the  shops  to  be 
shod  with  eight  and  ten-dollar  footwear,  paid 
the  bills  with  greenbacks  peeled  from  fat  rolls, 
and  departed  to  deposit  the  remaindep  in  the 
banks. 

If  $500,000,000  could  make  that  difference  in 
the  South,  what  would  nearly  $2,500,000,000 
added  to  the  sum  total  of  our  trade  in  healthy 
values  mean  to  the  nation? 

Suppose  that  a  man  from  Mars  were  to  arrive 

suddenly  upon  this  planet   with  a  vast  sum  of 

money.     Suppose  he  were  to  say,  "We  lack  all 

kinds  of  useful  commodities  on  Mars;  and  I  am 

10 


MONEY  RUNNING  TO  WASTE 

commissioned  to  place  an  order  with  American 
producers  for  two  and  one-half  billion  dollars 
worth  of  goods."  What  would  be  the  effect  of 
that  record  order  ?  Cash  registers  would  be  hum- 
ming, labor  would  be  amply  paid.  Nowhere  in 
America  would  there  be  want  among  the  willing 
and  industrious. 

Then  suppose  that,  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
the  man  from  Mars  were  to  say:  'T  have  over- 
looked the  fact  that  there  is  no  way  for  us  to 
secure  delivery  of  these  goods,  altho  we  have 
been  able  to  transport  their  equivalent  as  pay- 
ment. But  on  Mars  we  are  intensely  sympa- 
thetic with  your  war  for  the  safety  of  Demo- 
cracy. I  will  pay  for  the  goods,  but  you  may 
keep  them  as  the  contribution  of  our  planet  to 
the  defense  of  civilization  upon  the  earth." 

Sell  the  goods  and  keep  them  too ! 

That  is  exactly  the  proposition  offered  by 
prohibition. 

What  is  the  practical  power  of  this  money  that 
we  pass  so  readily  over  the  bar  in  exchange  for 
poverty  and  insanity,  delinquency  and  deficiency  ? 

If  the  $2,438,037,985.50  spent  for  liquor  in  the 
United  States  last  year  were  used  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  army  until  the  end  of  the  next  fiscal 
year,  July,  1918,  this  is  what  it  would  accom- 
plish :  It  would  insure  the  salaries  of  our  fighting 
men  ($715,828,440)  ;  would  pay  for  necessary 
transportation  in  mobilizing  our  troops  and 
equipment  ($450,490,305)  ;  it  would  clothe 
($375,506,097)  and  provide  subsistence  ($329,- 
672,218)  for  the  army;  would  allow  the  medical 
corps  to  keep  up  its  work  and  erect  hospitals 
($100,026,000)  ;  it  would  cover  the  ordnance 
stores  ammunition  ($39,520,000)  and  ordnance 
stores  supplies  ($70,000,000)  ;  would  erect 
barracks  and  quarters  for  the  troops  ($82,118,- 
000)  ;  maintain  the  civilian  training  camps  ($2,- 
119,000)  ;  the  very  important  engineer  depart- 
ment could  operate  with  sufficient  funds  ($104,- 
300,000)  ;  would  maintain  the  quartermaster's 
II 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

department  ($163,917,925)  ;  and  the  signal  corps 
($3,000,000)  ;  and  besides  all  this  would  leave  a 
balance  of  $1,540,000.50. 

Or  consider  the  significance  of  this  drink  ex- 
penditure in  its  relation  to  the  great  gray  ships 
which  await  in  menacing  patience  the  irruption 
of  the  Kaiser's  fleet. 

The  first  taxation  proposal  of  the  government 
was  for  $2,002,000,000. 

We  could  pay  that  tax  out  of  the  drink  bill 
and  still  have  $436,000,000.  or  enough  to  build 
a  sea-going  fleet  which  would  definitely  establish 
American  naval  supremacy  over  the  Kaiser. 

The  American  people  sank  in  beer  and  whisky 
the  equivalent  of  enough  battleships  and  sub- 
marines to  drive  the  German  fleet  from  the  seas. 
What  could  be  done  with  $436,000,000?  It 
would  build  ten  battleships,  each  costing  $11,- 
500,000;  five  battle  cruisers  at  $16,500,000;  five 
scout  cruisers  at  $5,000,000  each ;  20  torpedo 
boat  destroyers  at  $1,200,000  each  ;  3  fuel  ships 
at  $1,500,000  each;  10  gunboats  at  $900,000 
each;  a  flotilla  of  60  submarines  at  $1,000,000 
each  ;  and  leave  $1 16,000,000  to  be  used  for  their 
armor  and  armament  which  are  not  included  in 
the  above  figures. 

Hov^  much  longer  are  the  people  going  to 
allow  the  sinking  each  year  of  this  vast  fleet, 
even  before  it  is  built? 

The  fact  that  the  drink  traflic  returns  to  the 
government  a  small  part  of  what  it  wrings  from 
the  people  is  no  argument  for  the  c(Mitinuation 
of  its  ravages.  The  drink  seller  can  no  more 
help  to  carry  the  burdens  of  government  than 
the  gambler  and  prostitute.  He  is  part  of  that 
burclen.  The  highwayman  who  stops  you  upon 
the  street  and  demands  your  money  or  your  life 
spends  his  ill-gtn  gains.  He  even  pays  a  tax 
upon  the  pistol  he  thrusts  into  your  face.  Hut 
no  man  would  contend  that  he  is  an  asset  to 
the  national  treasury. 

Read  what  Professor  Irving  Fisher,  the  coun- 
12 


MONEY  RUNNING  TO  WASTE 

try's  leading  political  economist,  thinks  of  the 
drink  revenue : 

'Tn  19 1 6  the  federal  government  received  less 
than  $250,000,000  as  revenue  from  alcoholic 
liquors,  and  only  $89,000,000  of  this  was  from 
fermented  liquors.  This  is  less  than  10  per 
cent  of  the  Liherty  Loan,  less  than  5  per  cent 
of  a  Vear's  war  expenditure. 

"These  taxes  are  PAID  BY  THE  CON- 
SUIMER,  who  pays  in  addition  $2,000,000,000 
which  the  government  DOES  NOT  GET  and 
which  is  worse  than  wasted.  The  nation  loses 
annually  $2,000,000,000  worth  of  energy  in  the 
production  of  licjuors.  Under  prohibition  this 
expenditure  would  be  transferred  to  channels 
truly  productive,  the  government  could  still  get 
its  $250,000,000  and  the  people  would  have  $2,- 
000,000,000  more  in  their  pockets  in  additional 
food,  munitions,  clothing,  etc. 

''Besides  this  there  would  be  an  increase  in 
productive  energy  of  from  10  to  20  per  cent.  In 
Russia  textile  mills  increased  their  productivity 
9  per  cent  under  prohibition,  the  Russian  mines 
increased  their  productivity  30  per  cent,  and  the 
Finnish  mines  50  per  cent.  A  Connecticut  manu- 
facturer, after  careful  reckoning,  found  that 
elimination  of  drunkenness  would  increase  his 
factory's  output  20  per  cent. 

"The  total  income  of  the  United  States  is 
about  $45,000,000,000,  of  which  three  fourths 
consists  of  wages  and  profits.  By  prohibition 
we  would,  at  least,  gain  $2,200,000,000  thru  the 
release  of  human  energy,  in  addition  to  the 
$2,000,000,000  saved  by  diverting  drink  ex- 
penditure to  useful  production,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  saving  in  the  cost  of  jails,  alms- 
houses, asylums,  and  the  reduction  of  the 
death  rate. 

"Prohibition  would  not  destroy  revenue.  New 
tax  levies  are  easy  to  construct.  The  net  result 
will  not  be  additional  economic  or  tax  burdens, 
but  quite  the  contrary.    One  might  as  well  argue 

13 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

against  a  public  measure  to  reduce  the  death 
rate  on  the  ground  that  it  would  reduce  the 
receipts  from  inheritance  taxes.  To  keep  alcohol 
for  revenue  is  as  absurd  as  to  burn  a  house  in 
order  to  roast  a  pig.  Even  without  laying  new 
taxes  the  old  ones  would  yield  more  revenue 
automatically.  For  instance,  the  income  tax 
would  yield  lo  per  cent  more.  IMost  other  tax 
receipts  would  increase  correspondingly. 

**We  could  even,  for  the  present,  let  the  tax 
bill  alone  and  take  a  quarter  or  half  billion  of 
the  over-subscription  to  the  Libertv  Loan. 

"WE  SIMPLY  CANNOT  AFFORD  THE 
DRINK  REVENUE  IN  WAR  TIME.  IT 
COSTS  TOO  MUCH." 

As  the  wick  burns,  oil,  creeping  slowly  up, 
feeds  the  flame.  As  the  saloon  prospers,  wealth, 
creeping  slowly  up  from  the  basins  of  national 
prosperity,  feeds  the  fire. 

In  the  realms  of  trade  the  drink  traffic  is  an 
Apache. 

If  it  cannot  secure  its  money  by  fraud,  it  tries 
theft;  if  theft  is  not  remunerative,  it  uses  mur- 
der. The  blackjack,  dynamite,  and  fire  are  its 
arguments  in  local  option  campaigns,  while  the 
boycott  and  political  corruption  serve  its  state 
and  national  purposes  admirably.  There  is  noth- 
ing it  will  not  do,  good  or  bad,  if  only  dividends 
will  be  yielded. 

And  when  the  simple  facts,  the  irresistible 
arguments  for  prohibition,  are  laid  before  the 
j)eople,  the  liquor  trade  offers  in  opposition  a 
defense  so  frantic,  so  absurd  in  its  methods,  that 
one  is  reminded  of  a  howling  dervish  with  a 
Roman  candle.  The  situation  is  illuminated,  of 
course,  but  col(^r  and  direction  are  changed  a  bit 
too  often  for  efficiency. 


IV 

DRINK,   WHERE  ARE   OUR   MEN? 

Money  first,  but  MEN  must  come  next. 

The  call  for  men  sounded  over  the  land,  and 
ten  million  strong  they  came  forward. 

Out  of  the  homes  of  the  clean  and  strong  they 
came  by  millions.  Four  out  of  five  of  them  were 
found  physically  fit. 

Then  Drink  advanced  to  make  its  offering. 
And  as  its  share  it  turned  over  to  the  registrars 
of  the  national  army  its  surging  mob  of  rickety, 
half-made,  slum-bred  incompetents  for  examina- 
tion. Four  out  of  five  of  them  were  found 
physically  unfit. 

Clear-eyed,  sturdy  and  strong,  physically  fault- 
less and  morally  clean,  the  hope  of  the  nation, 
two  million  young  Americans  have  marched  away 
to  the  camps  to  defend  the  nation  and  the  unfit 
who  made  themselves  unfit  with  beer  and  foul 
women. 

Diseased,  unclean,  physically  rotten,  the  peril 
of  the  nation,  the  rejected  men  of  the  drink- 
made  slums  are  marching  back — to  breed ! 

During  the  past  twenty  years  the  liquor  traffic 
in  America  has  been  responsible  for  nearly  two 
million  deaths.  We  need  soldiers  and  the  liquor 
traffic  killed  them  years  ago.  We  need  laborers 
and  Drink  struck  them  down  with  a  Kaiser's 
blow  in  the  days  gone  by. 

Three  times  as  many  American  babies  died  in 
191 5  as  the  German  soldiers  succeeded  in  killing 
of  British  men.  Alcoholic  liquor  was  the  great- 
est single  factor  in  that  murderous  record. 

One  year  of  drink  murder  is  responsible  for 
15 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

more  slain  than  were  killed  in  the  battles  of 
Gettysburg,  the  Wilderness,  Antietam,  Chicka- 
maiiga,  Cold  Harbor,  Fredericksburg,  Man- 
assas, Shiloh,  Murfreesboro,  and  Petersburg. 
The  Committee  of  the  Aledico-Actuarial  Mor- 
tality Investigation  found  by  investigating  the 
records  of  two  million  lives  that  the  drinking  men 
in  that  group  lost  an  average  of  four  years  each. 
Estimates  based  upon  Danish  actuarial  investiga- 
tions indicate  that  each  pint  of  beer  consumed 
costs  the  drinker  twenty-five  minutes  of  life. 

If  we  were  to  lose  five  hundred  thousand 
men  in  this  war,  we  could  make  good  that  loss 
in  ten  years  by  stopping  Drink's  murder  of 
our  citizens. 

Concerning  these  things,  there  are  no  longer 
two  opinions  among  informed  men.  The  Amer- 
ican Medical  Association  has  formally  denounced 
alcohol,  denied  its  claims  of  omnipotent  medicinal 
powers  and  declared  hostility  to  it  as  a  beverage. 
The  Health  boards  of  New  York,  Chicago,  and 
a  score  of  other  cities  have  assailed  it.  The 
Life  Extension  Institute,  a  score  of  State  medical 
boards,  nurses'  associations  and  unnumbered 
thousands  of  physicians  have  warned  the  country 
against  it. 

In  the  light  of  modern  medical  science,  the 
giving  of  rum  to  soldiers  who  are  in  immediate 
clanger  of  suflfering  wounds,  is  a  stab  in  the  back. 
The  soldier's  resistance  to  shock  and  infection 
is  greatly  decreased  by  alcohol.  The  drinking 
man  is  in  much  greater  danger  of  contracting 
tuberculosis ;  he  is  much  more  likely  to  suffer 
from  trench  feet. 

lUit  there  is  a  danger  far  greater  than  tuber- 
culosis or  trench  feet.  The  drink  trade,  after 
the  United  States  has  weeded  out  its  beer-fed 
incapables,  camps  on  the  trail  of  America's  select 
youth  with  its  bars  and  prostitutes,  and  does  its 
utmost  to  drag  down  wholesome  men  and  make 
ihem  rioters,  associates  of  harlots  and  disease- 
rotted  slackers. 

i6 


DRINK,  WHERE  ARE  OUR  MEN? 

It  is  true  that  Congress  has  forbidden  the  sale 
of  drink  to  soldiers.  The  infinite  blessings  of 
this  law  indicate  that  a  policy  of  complete  con- 
sistency on  the  part  of  the  government,  a  policy 
that  demands  of  the  man  behind  the  soldier  the 
same  efficiency  that  is  demanded  of  the  man  be- 
hind the  gun,  would  yield  enormous  results.  The 
wide  difference  in  the  effect  of  the  law  prohibit- 
ing the  sale  of  alcoholic  beverages  in  wet  terri- 
tory and  in  dry  territory  also  calls  in  stentorian 
tones  for  the  enactment  of  prohibition  thruout  the, 
nation,  for  the  drink  trade  has  maintained  to- 
ward this  law  the  same  attitude  it  has  main- 
tained toward  every  other  law  which  affects  its 
dividends. 

It  is  reported  that  in  Philadelphia,  some 
"patriotic"  beer  men  provided  garments  to  cover 
uniforms  so  that  the  informing  insignia  could 
not  be  seen  and  they  could  claim  ignorance  as 
their  excuse  for  breaking  the  law.  In  wet  terri- 
tory scores  of  men  are  being  arrested  weekly  for 
attempting  to  debauch  American  troops. 

But  what  has  been  the  result  of  this  law  in 
territory  where  the  civilian  is  on  the  same  plane 
as  the  soldier?  The  camps  in  prohibition  States 
have  established  a  record  for  soberness  and 
moral  cleanliness  never  before  approached  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  Mr.  Joseph  H.  Odell,  in 
special  correspondence  to  the  Outlook,  issue  of 
November  14,  1917,  declares  that  at  Camp  Han- 
cock, near  Augusta,  in  the  prohibition  State  of 
Georgia,  "there  has  not  been  a  new  case  of 
venereal  disease  discovered  in  the  six  weeks  the 
Regiment  has  been  in  camp." 

"The  statement  seems  so  incredible  that  I 
went  to  the  divisional  surgeon.  Colonel  C.  M. 
Kellar,  and  verified  it  with  my  own  eyes  on  the 
dailv  health  reports  at  headquarters,"  writes  Mr. 
Odell. 

"Such  a  thing  is  almost  beyond  belief.  The 
judge-advocate  also  told  me  that  in  six  weeks 
there  had  been  only  four  cases  of  *drunk  and 

17 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

disorderly*  in  the  entire  division  of  27,000 
men.  Naturally,  I  wanted  to  know  what  lay 
behind  this  almost  immaculate  condition. 

"The  little  city  of  Augusta  is  only  four  miles 
from  the  camp,  and  I  determined  to  make  an 
investigation.  A  newspaper  man,  writing  for  a 
syndicate  of  papers  in  a  Xorthern  city,  helped 
me  considerably.  'This  is  a  Sunday-school  out- 
fit with  a  vengeance,'  he  said.  'Where  can  you 
get  a  drink?  W^hy,  old  man,  you  will  have  to 
go  back  home  for  it !  I've  been  here  six  weeks 
and  I  don't  know  where  you  could  get  a  pony 
to  save  your  life.  There  was  a  man  here  last 
week  who  had  a  bottle  in  his  room,  but  he's  gone 
now.  They  tell  me  that  if  you  make  friends  with 
exactly  the  right  native,  and  he's  dead  sure  you're 
not  a  plain-clothes  man,  he  might  get  a  bottle  of 
rye  for  you ;  but  it  would  cost  from  six  to  ten ' 
bucks  and  be  poor  stuff  at  that !  And  women  ? 
Why,  there  isn't  a  house  in  town,  and  I  doubt 
if  there  is  a  professional  in  the  region.  The  local 
authorities  have  cooperated  with  the  Fosdick 
Commission  and  cleaned  the  place  up  as  I  never 
saw  a  place  cleaned  up  before.  Soldiers  some- 
times find  what  they  are  looking  for,  but  it  is 
clandestine  and  occasional.  There  is  no  com- 
mercialized vice.' 

**r\irther  inquiry  about  town,  interrogations  of 
hackdrivers  and  likely  loafers,  and  a  more  care- 
ful questioning  of  the  military  police  confirmed 
the  correspondent's  statement.  I  doubt  whether 
any  city  near  a  large  military  establishment  was 
ever  as  clean  as  Augusta.  I  found  similar  con- 
ditions in  Spartanburg.  South  Carolina,  but  that 
is  a  nuich  smaller  place,  and  tiiercfore  more  easily 
handled.  I  am  now  convinced  that  something 
more  than  the  climate  determined  the  choice  of 
those  cantonments.  Where  liquor  is  absolutely 
banished  from  a  region,  the  moral  problems  of 
the  military  commanders  are  reduced  almost  to 
the  mininuun.  And  I  write  the  following  de- 
liberately about  Camp  Hancock:  That  I  would 
18 


DRINK,  WHERE  ARE  OUR  MEN? 

rather  intrust  the  moral  character  of  my  boy  to 
that  camp  than  to  any  college  or  university  I 
know.  This  does  not  cast  any  unusually  dark 
shadow  upon  the  educational  institutions  of  the 
country,  but  they  have  never  possessed  the  abso- 
lute power  to  control  their  environment  that  is 
now  held  by  the  War  Department.  And  it  does 
not  mean  that  Camp  Hancock  is  conspicuously 
better  than  the  other  Southern  camps." 

In  contrasting  conditions  at  Camp  Hancock 
with  conditions  at  wet  El  Paso,  where  he  was  at 
the  time  of  the  Mexican  mobilization.  Colonel 
George  C.  Richards,  said :  "This  is  heaven  com- 
pared to  El  Paso.  Since  coming  South  I  have 
smelled  liquor  on  the  breath  of  only  one  man. 
The  drink  situation  and  the  matter  of  disorderly 
houses  are  both  under  control.  The  folks  at 
home  have  no  cause  for  worry." 

Similar  news  comes  from  Camp  Funston  in 
Kansas  and  from  other  camps  in  other  prohi- 
bition States.  Captain  R.  C.  Winslow,  regimental 
surgeon  at  Camp  Custer,  declares  that  prohi- 
bition increases  the  efficiency  of  soldiers  one  hun- 
dred per  cent;  and  the  commandant  at  Fort 
Sheridan,  Colonel  W.  J.  Nicholson,  asserts  that 
drink  is  responsible  for  ninety-five  per  cent  of 
the  military  crime  at  that  post  near  the  wet  city 
of  Chicago.  Small  wonder  that  Surgeon-Gen- 
eral Gorgas  of  the  army  and  Surgeon-General 
Braisted  of  the  navy  are  both  prohibitionists. 

Since  prohibition  produces  results  so  astonish- 
ing as  a  reenforcement  of  the  law  forbidding  the 
sale  of  liquor  to  soldiers,  certainly  the  only  sensi- 
ble thing  for  the  American  people  to  do  is  to  de- 
mand a  nation-wide  dry  zone  as  the  logical  basis 
of  that  law.  Indeed,  this  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  protect  the  men  against  those  diseases  which 
deplete  ranks  almost  as  seriously  as  the  casual- 
ties of  the  battlefield. 

The  influence  of  alcohol  as  a  causation  of 
venereal  disease  is  placed  at  all  the  way  from 
thirty-nine  per  cent  of  all  infections  by  Not- 
19 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

thaft,  to  seventy-six  per  cent  by  Forel,  and  eighty 
per  cent  by  Douglas  White. 

A  man  out  of  the  war  is  "ouf  whether  he  has 
been  ehminated  by  a  German  bullet  or  an  Amer- 
ican harlot.  /\t  one  time  an  allied  nation  had 
in  one  hospital  camp  17,000  soldiers  suffering 
from  venereal  disease.  The  evil  women,  who  are 
the  practical  allies  of  the  Kaiser,  have  struck 
down  200,000  British  soldiers  in  France  alone, 
according  to  a  statement  of  the  London  Daily 
Mail  for  April  5,  191 7. 

"There  is  an  intimate,  and  not  well  under- 
stood, relation  between  alcohol  and  the  venereal 
diseases,"  says  Dr.  Charles  E.  Riggs,  medical 
inspector  of  the  United  States  Navy,  at  Norfolk, 
Mrginia.  ''Alcohol  and  venereal  disease  are 
close  allies." 

He  comments  upon  the  fact  that  promoters  of 
vice  use  alcohol  to  stimulate  trade. 

Of  the  utmost  importance  are  tlie  figures  Dr. 
Riggs  proffers  in  support  of  his  statement.  He 
says,  in  giving  the  experience  of  the  naval 
medical  officers  at  Norfolk : 

"Our  statistics  show  that  prior  to  the  time  of 
enforcement  of  the  prohibition  law  in  the  State 
of  \'irginia,  there  were  365  infections,  and  137, 
oi"  37-5  P^^"  cent,  of  the  infected  admit  being 
under  the  influence  of  alcohol  at  the  time  the 
disease  was  contracted,  and  228,  or  62.5  per  cent, 
deny  alcohol.  Since  the  enforcement  of  prohi- 
bition there  have  been  93  infections,  of  which 
II,  or  1 1.8  per  cent,  were  acquired  while  under 
the  influence  of  alcohol,  and  all  but  two  of  these 
were  contracted  outside  of  the  State  and  in  wet 
territory.  Of  the  548  infections  investigated  148, 
or  32.3  per  cent,  were  acquired  while  under  the 
influence  of  some  kind  of  alcohol.  Alcohol  is 
still  a  factor  in  the  venereal  problem,  but  owing 
to  increasing  prohibitory  legislation  it  is  a  dimin- 
ishing factor." 

The   men   who  advocate   complete   ])r()hibition 
for  the  war  are  accused  of  being  fanatical.     Per- 
20 


DRINK,  WHERE  ARE  OUR  MEN? 

haps  they  are.  Where  there  is  fanaticism,  there 
is  energy,  and  where  there  is  energy  there  is 
work,  and  where  there  is  work  there  is  accom- 
phshment.  If  it  is  fanaticism  to  feel  an  intense 
and  burning  hatred  of  the  hcense  system  which 
hinders  the  soldierly  efficiency  of  our  men  at  a 
time  when  the  nation  is  in  danger,  then  we  are 
fanatical,  and  so  is  every  other  man  who  has  a 
shred  of  patriotism  in  his  soul. 


21 


THE  MILLS  OF  THE  GOD  MARS 

The  day  when  armies  fought  armies  is  past. 
Now  nations  fight  nations.  Over  the  looms  and 
before  the  blazing  furnaces,  on  the  platforms  of 
ten  thousand  warehouses  and  on  a  hundred  thou- 
sand swaying  railway  cars,  the  soldiers  of  the 
republic  are  contriving  the  defeat  of  Germany. 

What  infinite  folly,  then,  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  soldier  in  uniform  and  the  soldier  in 
overalls  in  our  treatment  of  the  liquor  traffic ! 

LABOR  is  the  most  vital  consideration  of  the 
war  program.  We  must  build  ships  as  we  never 
built  them  before,  or  we  may  expect  to  see  the 
submarines  triumphant,  our  coast  cities  bom- 
barded, our  little  ones  rent  with  exploding  bombs, 
and  perhaps  our  country  devastated  and  our 
women  dishonored  as  the  unoffending  countries 
of  France  and  lielgium  were  ruined  and  polluted. 
And  LABOR  must  build  the  ships,  labor  must 
make  the  uniforms,  labor  must  grow  the  wheat 
and  corn,  labor  must  mine  the  coal  that  goes  to 
feed  the  hot  vitals  of  the  mills  with  which  the 
god  Mars  is  grinding  forth  victory.  LABOR 
must  move  everything  that  is  moved. 

When  Germany  graciously  informed  us  that 
we  could  send  one  ship  to  England  each  week, 
provided  we  would  decorate  it  with  convict 
stripes,  the  industries  of  this  nation  were  under 
such  strain  as  they  never  knew  before.  Day  and 
night  they  were  working  to  munition  the  forces 
of  civilization,  and  to  maintain  the  high-speed 
traffic  of  our  own  people.  Laborers  were  pre- 
cious almost  beyond  price. 

And  then  we  added  to  the  burden  upon  our 

22 


THE  MILLS  OF  THE  GOD  MARS 

industries  the  greatest  war  program  in  history. 
We  gave  them  twice  as  much  to  do  AND  LESS 
TO  DO  IT  WITH,  for  two  milHon  men  were 
withdrawn  from  the  farms  and  forges  to  face 
the  brutal  Hindenburg. 

The  result  might  have  been  accurately  fore- 
told by  a  child.  The  cantonments  were  late  in 
preparation.  Needed  equipment  arrived  weeks 
after  it  was  expected.  The  ship-building  pro- 
gram is  far  behind. 

There  is  only  one  solution  to  our  problem.  Men 
must  be  diverted  from  the  destructive  to  the  con- 
structive trades.  Not  only  is  every  ounce  of 
power  used  in  making,  distributing,  or  transport- 
ing booze  worse  than  wasted,  but  this  loss  of  labor 
is  directly  productive  of  a  far  worse  loss  in  de- 
creased efficiency. 

Consider  the  one  item  of  fuel.  Upon  a  steady 
and  ample  stream  of  coal  depends  our  entire  in- 
dustrial organization.  At  this  very  moment  fac- 
tories are  running  on  short  time  because  coal  is 
lacking.  In  many  cities  there  is  actual  suffering 
for  want  of  coal  to  feed  the  furnaces  of  schools 
and  residences.  And  yet  the  drink  trade  is  at 
this  moment  responsible  for  the  loss  of  the  entire 
time  of  15,000  miners. 

"It  is  safe  to  say  that  our  loss  in  production 
due  to  the  use  of  alcoholic  beverages  by  the  men, 
amounts  to  ten  per  cent,"  writes  one  coal  com- 
pany which  mines  anthracite.  This  concern  esti- 
mates that  in  anthracite  alone,  the  country  loses 
7,500,000  tons  yearly  and  they  support  their  esti- 
mate by  figures  showing  a  loss  of  80  mine  cars 
of  coal  in  two  days  following  one  pay  day  and 
the  loss  of  750  tons  following  one  pay  day  and 
Labor  Day. 

"Drink  is  seriously  interfering  with  the  opera- 
tion of  our  coal  mines,"  declares  another  concern 
in  pleading  for  immediate  national  prohibition. 
"Twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  men  are  off  one 
or  two  days  after  each  pay  day." 

"Alcohol  is  reducing  the  output  of  our  mines 
23 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

by  one  fourth,"  testifies  another  operator.  The 
estimate  of  twenty-five  per  cent  loss  because  of 
drink  is  a  favorite  one  with  mine  men.  Hun- 
dreds of  coal  companies  have  furnished  detailed 
information  showing  that  their  mines  have  actu- 
ally been  closed  from  five  to  six  days  a  month  on 
account  of  booze.  "Drink  is  responsible  for  ten 
per  cent  of  our  men  being  idle  all  of  the  time  and 
twenty-one  per  cent  after  pay  day,"  is  the  ex- 
perience of  a  Pennsylvania  mine. 

"The  government  is  calling  upon  us  for  in- 
creased production  and  then  continues  to 
tolerate  the  one  thing  that  does  more  than  all 
else  to  decrease  production,"  writes  the  head 
of  one  great  mine  company,  in  almost  bitter 
words. 

"If  President  Wilson  will  exercise  the  power 
vested  in  him  and  stop  the  manufacture  of  beer, 
Lincoln's  name  will  pale  into  insignificance," 
writes  another,  who  adds:  "Prohibition  should 
be  nation-wide.  If  liquor  is  permitted  in  one 
place  and  not  in  another,  the  more  ignorant  type 
of  laborers  will  be  inclined  to  follow  the  saloons. 
In  West  Virginia  prohibition  has  done  more  for 
mining  than  was  believed  possible,  but  the  mines 
have  lost  some  men  to  Pennsylvania  because  they 
wanted  the  saloons  and  prostitutes." 

Almost  without  exception,  the  coal  operators 
whose  testimony  has  been  compiled,  but  whose 
names  must  be  held  confidential  to  protect  them 
from  sabotage  and  boycott,  advise  immediate 
national  prohibiti(^n  as  a  vital  necessity.  Many 
of  them  in  no-licensc  communities  contrast  con- 
(Htions  with  those  obtaining  in  the  wet  days. 

( )ne  concern,  the  White  Oak  Coal  Company,  of 
McDonald,  West  \'irginia,  has  made  public  a 
contrast  between  three  Saturday  pay  days  and 
Mondays  following  when  the  State  had  saloons 
and  the  corresponding  days  of  the  first  dry  year. 
The  figures  show  an  increase  of  32.1(78  tons  in 
favor  of  the  dry  period.  The  Colorado  Fuel  and 
Iron  Company  have  also  permitted  the  use  of 

24 


THE  MILLS  OF  THE  GOD  MARS 

their  name  in  connection-  with  a  similar  con- 
trast. 

No  wonder  that  the  National  Coal  Producers' 
Association  in  convention  at  Pittsburgh  on  Octo- 
ber 22i,  1917,  requested  the  government  to  sur- 
round the  nation's  mines  with  the  five-mile  bone- 
dry  zone  which  now  protects  its  camps. 

The  manufacturers  of  motor  vehicles,  of  rub- 
ber products,  of  leather  goods,  of  steel  and  iron 
— these,  and  many  other  groups,  are  sounding 
a  clanging  alarm. 

In  Akron,  Ohio,  a  great  rubber  company  is 
devoting  one  department  to  manufacturing 
nose-clips  for  gas  masks.  They  are  working 
only  two  shifts  a  day  instead  of  three.  On 
one  Saturday,  following  the  Friday  pay  day, 
only  six  men  in  one  shift  of  sixty  reported 
for  work.  Superintendent  of  this  department 
asserts  that  drink  is  responsible  for  ninety 
per  cent  of  his  labor  troubles. 

Consider  the  single  industry  of  iron  and  steel. 
These  manufacturers  may  be  quoted.  Eighty- 
three  of  them  representing  the  greatest  single 
industrial  group  in  the  world,  have  gone  on 
record  as  demanding  the  elimination  of  alcohol, 
as  an  industrial  necessitv.  This  is  the  mightv 
roll  : 

The  Interstate  Iron  and  Steel  Company,  East 
Chicago,  Indiana  ;  the  American  Manganese  Steel 
Company,  Chicago  Heights,  Illinois ;  the  Wiscon- 
sin Steel  Company,  Chicago,  Illinois ;  Mackin- 
tosh, Hemphill  &  Co.,  Pennsylvania;  the  Girard 
Iron  Company,  Ohio ;  the  Lackawanna  Steel 
Company,  New  York ;  the  Josephine  Furnace  & 
Coke  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  Thurlow  Steel 
Works,  Pennsylvania ;  Lockland  Iron  and  Steel 
Company,  Ohio ;  the  Lebanon  A^alley  Iron  and 
Steel  Company,  Lebanon,  Pennsylvania;  the 
Union  Steel  Casting  Company,  Pennsylvania ; 
Chicago  Railway  Equipment  Company,  Illinois ; 
the  Thomas  Iron  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  the 
Altoona  Iron  Company,  Pennsylvania;  the  Mary- 
25 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

land  .  Steel  Company,  Maryland ;  the  Empire 
Steel  and  Iron  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  Amer- 
ican ]\lalleables  Company,  New  York;  the  Em- 
pire Rolling  ]\Iill  Company,  Ohio ;  Seaboard  Steel 
Casting  Company,  Pennsylvania;  the  Rogers- 
Shears  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  the  American 
Rolling  Mill  Company,  Ohio;  the  Logan  Iron 
and  Steel  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  Marting  Iron 
and  Steel  Company,  Ohio ;  the  Andrews  &  Hitch- 
cock Iron  Company,  Ohio ;  Youngstown  Sheet 
and  Tube  Company,  Ohio ;  the  Delaware  River 
Steel  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  Stanley  Flagg 
Company,  Pennsylvania ;  the  Penn  Steel  Castings 
and  Machine  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  the 
Thomas  Iron  Company,  Easton,  Pennsylvania; 
the  Pennsylvania  Steel  Company,  Pennsylvania ; 
George  B.  Lessig  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  the 
Reading  Steel  Castings  Company,  Pennsylvania ; 
the  Wyoming  Shovel  Works,  Pennsylvania ;  the 
Cleveland  Furnace  Company,  Ohio;  the  Marion 
Malleable  Iron  Works,  Indiana ;  the  Union  Roll- 
ing Mill  Company,  Ohio;  the  Duquesne  Steel 
Foundry  Company,  Pennsylvania :  David  P>rad- 
ley  Manufacturing  Works,  Illinois ;  the  Ameri- 
can Manganese  Manufacturing  Company,  Penn- 
sylvania ;  the  Allegheny  Steel  Company,  Penn- 
sylvania ;  Spang,  Chalfant  &  Co.,  Inc.,  Pennsyl- 
vania ;  the  A.  M.  Byers  Company,  Pennsylvania ; 
the  Columbus  Iron  and  Steel  Company,  ()hio; 
The  Farrell-Cheek  Steel  Foundry  Company, 
Ohio;  Mclnnes  Steel  Company,  Ltd.,  Pennsyl- 
vania ;  the  Cleveland  I-^urnace  Company,  Ohio ; 
Follansbee  r)rothers  Company,  West  \'irginia ; 
Phillips  Sheet  Tin  Plate  Company,  West  \^ir- 
ginia ;  the  Buckeye  Rolling  Mill  Company,  New- 
ark, Ohio;  the  American  Steel  Foundries,  Al- 
liance, Ohio;  Otis  Steel  Company,  Ohio;  the 
American  Brake  Shoe  and  Foundry  Company, 
Norwood,  ]\rass. ;  the  Interstate  Iron  and  Steel 
Company,  Chicago.  Illinois ;  Oliver  Chilled  Plow 
Works,  Indiana:  the  Chicago  Malleable  Castings 
Co.,  Illinois;  Columbia  Tool  Steel  Company, 
26 


THE  MILLS  OF  THE  GOD  MARS 

Chicago ;  the  IlHnois  Steel  Company,  Chicago ; 
the  Indiana  Steel  Company,  Chicago;  American 
Brake  Shoe  and  Foundry  Company,  Chicago; 
the  Upson  Nut  Company,  Ohio ;  the  DeForest 
Sheet  and  Tin  Plate  Company,  Ohio ;  the  Ameri- 
can Steel  &  Wire  Company,  Newburgh,  Ohio ; 
Newburgh  Steel  Works,  Ohio ;  Emma  Furnace, 
Newburgh,  Ohio ;  the  Buckeye  Rolling  Mill  Com- 
pany. Steubenville,  Ohio;  the  Belfont  Iron 
Works,  Ohio;  Reeves  ^Manufacturing  Company, 
Ohio:  the  Scranton  Bolt  and  Nut  Company, 
Pennsylvania ;  the  American  Steel  and  Wire 
Company,  Cleveland,  Ohio;  the  Reliance  Steel 
Casting  Company,  Pennsylvania ;  Crane  Com- 
pany, Illinois ;  the  Marion  Steam  Shovel  Com- 
pany, Ohio ;  the  Illinois  Steel  Company,  Joliet, 
Illinois  ;  the  Berkshire  Iron  W^orks,  Pennsylvania ; 
the  American  Sheet  and  Tin  Plate  Company, 
West  Virginia  ;  Lukens  Iron  and  Steel  Company  ; 
Pennsylvania ;  the  Reading  Iron  Company,  Penn- 
svlvania ;  Joseph  E.  Thropp,  Pennsylvania ;  the 
Interstate  Iron  and  Steel  Company,  Cambridge, 
Ohio;  the  West  Steel  Casting  Company,  Cleve- 
land, Ohio. 

If  we  could  measure  labor  in  terms  of  man- 
power, we  would  find  a  yearly  loss  of  twenty-nine 
million  tons  of  brawn-units  simply  in  moving 
beer  from  place  to  place.  Thruout  the  activities 
of  our  industry  the  liquor  trade  is  taking  the 
equivalent  of  thirty  days  of  labor  each  time  the 
four  seasons  pass. 

Now,  when  the  world's  safety  hangs  upon 
our  effort,  is  no  time  to  fool  and  gamble  with 
peril.  If  we,  when  the  guns  begin  to  roll  this 
spring,  are  not  ready  to  the  last  man  and  the 
last  ship  and  the  last  gun,  we  will  pay  the 
cost  with  a  million  lives  and  twenty  billion 
dollars.  Not  all  of  the  months  are  campaign 
months.  The  delay  which  will  cost  us  sixty 
days  of  campaign  weather  will  cost  us  also 
months  of  weary  trench  warfare  in  waiting 
for  the  fighting  time  of  1919. 
27 


•  THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

A  few  months  ago  an  Italian  mission  in  Wash- 
ington   was    pleading    for    fuel    and    mmiitions. 
Everybody  knew  it.     Also  everybody  knew  that  ~ 
practically  nothing  could  be  done  for  Italy  be- 
cause the  ships  were  lacking. 

The  ships  were  lacking  because  material  and 
labor  were  lacking. 

Material  and  labor  were  lacking,  according  to 
the  testimony  of  hundreds  of  industrial  leaders 
because  drink  was  cutting  the  efficiency  of  labor 
and  preventing  its  full-time  effort. 

If  the  United  States  had  prohibited  the  drink 
trade  in  April,  1917,  one  factor  in  the  Italian 
disaster  would  evidently  have  been  eliminated, 
and  Cadorna  might  have  been  at  Trieste  and 
Laibach. 

The  chances  that  the  war  will  end  in  191 8 
are  slowly  glimmering  out.  Unless  the  nations 
opposing  Germany  stop  their  fooling  now  and 
begin  to  make  a  full-time,  one  hundred  per  cent 
effort  only  God  knows  when  it  will  end. 

Drink  is  more  responsible  for  this  than  any- 
thing else.  And  then  when  objection  is  made, 
the  trade  protests  that  we  are  troubling  the  coun- 
try. ''And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Ahab  saw 
Elijah,  that  Ahab  said  unto  him.  Art  thou  he 
that  troublcth  Israel?  And  he  answered,  I  have 
not  troubled  Israel ;  but  thou,  and  thy  father's 
house,  in  that  ye  have  forsaken  the  command- 
ments of  the  Lord,  and  thou  hast  followed 
lUialim"  (i  Kings  18.  17-18). 


28 


VI 

'TICK  THE  PLATE  AND  WE'LL  LICK 
THE  KAISER" 

This  war  will  be  won  not  by  the  last  million 
men  but  by  the  last  million  bushels  of  grain. 
''Armies,"  said  Napoleon,  "advance  on  their 
bellies." 

If  we  are  to  lick  the  Kaiser,  we  must  lick  the 
plate.  France  entered  the  campaign  of  19 17  with 
a  127,000,000  bushel  deficit  in  grain.  England 
is  even  now  in  the  shadow  of  the  bread  ticket. 
The  allied  nations  are  sustaining  a  grain  shortage 
of  200,000,000  bushels. 

America  will  never  know  what  it  owes  to  Mr. 
Herbert  Hoover  and  his  devoted  stafif,  who 
grappled  with  this  situation  in  full  faith  that 
the  American  people  would  overcome  it  with  in- 
telligence and  courage.  Lawns  by  the  million 
became  gardens,  schoolboys  left  their  books  to 
go  into  the  field,  housewives  learned  the  world 
importance  of  leftovers  and  pledged  themselves 
by  the  millions  to  wheatless  days  and  meatless 
days. 

But  there  are  no  beerless  days !  When  the 
food  bill  was  under  consideration  by  the  United 
States  Senate,  the  unscrupulous  men  sufficiently 
debased  to  lobby  for  German  beer  against  Amer- 
ican bread  swarmed  upon  Washington  with 
bigotry  and  hate  flaming  in  their  ranks.  The 
tyranny  of  the  trade  which  had  held  its  hand  upon 
tile  throat  of  America  these  generations  gone 
was  passing,  and  it  writhed  in  venomous  fear. 
That  trade  and  these  men,  American  allies  of 
Berlin,  told  the  American  Congress  that  it  could 
stop  the  wasting  of  food  by  everyone  but  the 
29 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

brewers !  Threats  of  treason  and  rebellion,  of 
sabotage  and  strikes  were  drifting  around.  The 
breweries  and  the  slums  ruled  at  least  to  the  ex- 
tent that  beer  was  not  then  prohibited. 

And  yet  the  manufacture  of  beer  is  the  great- 
est single  waste  of  food  in  the  United  States. 
x\ll  the  elements  that  enter  into  food  prices  are 
deleteriously  affected  by  the  liquor  trade.  Al- 
cohol cannot  be  made  without  destroying  car- 
bohydrate foods  such  as  sugar  and  starch.  And 
while  this  destruction  proceeds  unchecked,  the 
high  cost  of  living  is  making  life  itself  almost 
prohibitive.  The  American  pantry,  stocked  with 
the  pitiful  savings  of  faithful  women  who  love 
the  republic,  is  being  raided. 

Victor  Hugo  said,  'The  hunger  of  my  children 
shall  be  the  enemy  of  my  thirst."  We  are  taking 
food  from  the  mouths  of  little  ones  to  enrich 
the  brewers  who  roll  along  our  boulevards  in 
limousines.  It  is  a  bitter  absurdity  to  pry  mouth- 
fuls  of  bread  from  the  teeth  of  our  babies  and 
at  the  same  time  allow  the  continued  raiding  of 
our  food  supply  by  those  who  produce  nothing 
but  crime  and  insanity  and  j)overty  and  death. 
We  are  told  that  the  government,  which  can 
take  a  man's  profits  and  his  business,  his  auto- 
mobile and  his  house,  which  can  send  his 
body  to  the  trenches  and  his  soul  winging 
into  the  mysteries  cannot  turn  down  his  beer 
glass,  because  the  workingmen  will  strike! 
It  is  a  black  slander  of  our  working  population. 
Prohibition  would  not  make  these  men  sullen 
or  rebellious.  They  are  no  less  patriotic  than 
others.  They  are  even  more  burdened  by  the 
high  price  of  bread  than  other  classes.  They 
would  respond  heartily  to  the  supreme  call  to 
efficient  war  if  that  call  were  made.  And  it  ill 
behooves  spoon-fed  profiteers  to  libel  them  in  the 
meantime. 

The  bald  fact  is  that  the  time  will  soon  be  upon 
us  when   we   must  choose  between  empty  cup- 
boards and  empty  glasses. 
30 


"LICK  THE  PLATE— LICK  THE  KAISER" 

The  beer  trade  is  using  iio2U  food  sufficient  to 
support  5,555,000  hard-working-  men  for  an  en- 
tire year.  By  stopping  brewing  w^e  could  gain 
a  food  supply  more  than  sufficient  to  feed  five 
times  over  any  army  we  can  put  into  France  this 
year!  In  191 5  we  used,  in  making  beer,  ap- 
proximately 3,495,125,040  pounds  of  malt;  191,- 
413,943  pounds  of  rice;  460,128,650  pounds  of 
corn;  63,979,560  pounds  of  grape  sugar;  58,165,- 
083  pounds  of  hops  ;  45,505,673  pounds  of  glucose 
and  other  material  to  the  amount  of  4,706,247 
bushels,  232,429,685  pounds,  73,928  gallons. 
Turned  into  calories,  or  food  units,  these  items 
amount  to  6,894,273,468,150.  If  the  land  used 
in  growing  hops  in  America,  44,000  acres,  were 
devoted  to  food  products,  its  output  would  much 
more  than  feed  the  entire  enlisted  force  of  the 
navy. 

The  breW'Crs  are  exerting  themselves  now  to 
minimize  the  food  they  destroy.  But  in  the 
Yearbook  of  the  United  States  Brewers'  Asso- 
ciation for  the  year  19 14,  page  156,  the  follow- 
ing claim  is  made : 

"In  the  course  of  the  fiscal  year  19 13  grain  and 
other  farm  products  to  the  value  of  $113,513,971 
were  used  in  the  manufacture  of  liquors.  The 
full  significance  o£  this  amount  can  best  be 
appreciated  if  we  compare  it  v^ith  the  reports 
of  the  last  U.  S.  census  on  the  total  value  of 
the  crops  in  certain  typical  States  which 
show  that  it  exceeded  the  total  combined 
crop  values  in  the  census  year  of  Vermont, 
Maryland,  and  West  Virginia;  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode  Island,  New  Jersey,  and 
Florida;  of  Louisiana  (with  its  great  cotton 
and  sugar  interests),  New  Hampshire,  and 
Utah;  or  of  Maine,  Connecticut,  Delaware, 
Nevada,  New  Mexico,  and  Wyoming." 

And  again — in  the  National  Wholesale  Liquor 
Dealers'  Association  Anti-Prohibition  Manual 
for  1916,  the  following  is  found  on  page  21  : 

"According    to    the    U.    S.    Statistical    Ab- 

31 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

stracts,  there  are  three  hundred  thousand 
farmers  raising  corn,  barley,  rye,  hops,  and 
fruits  that  go  into  the  production  of  liquor. 

They  receive  in  prices  from  the  liquor  interests 
of  the  country  two  hundred  million  dollars  an- 
nually. Destroy  this  market  and  you  reduce  their 
purchasing  power  by  two  hundred  million  dollars 
a  year.  This  means  a  corresponding  reduction 
in  the  volume  of  all  business — the  output  of  the 
mines,  mills,  and  factories.  When  you  hear  a 
prohibition  speech  you  will  imagine  that  only 
corn  and  only  a  small  per  cent  of  that  is  used 
in  the  production  of  liquor.  They  do  not  tell 
you  the  whole  truth.  They  never  intimated  that 
barley,  rye,  hops,  and  fruits  go  into  the  produc- 
tion of  liquor.  We  are  not  afraid  of  the  whole 
truth.  The  brewers  and  distilleries  of  Peoria 
alone  consume  the  entire  surplus  crop  of  Iowa 
and  Illinois." 

The  land  misused  in  feeding  the  brewers'  vats 
would  make  a  field  two  miles  wide  and  reaching 
entirely  around  the  earth  at  the  equator.  If  this 
waste  could  be  stopped,  the  people  would  secure 
a  substantial  margin  upon  the  food  essentials  of 
life.  That  bare  fact  is  all  that  the  people  need 
upon  which  to  base  action.  They  know  that  food 
cannot  be  dcstrined  without  making  what  is  left 
cost  more,  and  THEY  PAY  THE  PRICE.  It 
is  a  race  between  the  brewers'  big  horses,  with 
Death  lashing  the  team,  and  the  bread  cart,  with 
Victory  driving. 

Take  the  single  item  of  sugar.  The  poor  are 
staring  to-day  at  a  famine  price  on  this  com- 
modity and  their  hearts  sink  while  the  brewers 
are  using  milhons  of  pounds  of  sugar  annually 
to  make  their  C^icrman  drink.  The  candy-makers 
have  been  put  upon  rations !  When  you  were 
a  boy  you  remember  you  would  bgast,  "Just  as 
easy  as  taking  candy  from  a  baby !"  Now  you 
know  how  easy  that  is.  The  brewers  are  doing 
it  with  consummate  and  devilish  facility.  Pos- 
sibly the  candy-makers  would  fare  better  if  they 
32 


"LICK  THE  PLATE— LICK  THE  KAISER" 

were  to  join  the  German- American  Alliance,  to 
which  practically  all  of  the  brewers  belong,  and 
which  protects  them  by  its  threats  when  Congress 
considers  any  legislation  inimical  to  this  special 
interest. 

Fifteen  cents  a  pound  for  sugar  is  the  ap- 
proaching price,  and  every  year  the  beer  trade 
destroys  many  days'  supply  of  that  article.  And 
we  permit  it — in  exchange  for  famine  prices  on 
the  food  that  is  most  essential  to  our  children, 
the  food  that  above  all  others  gives  warmth  and 
strength  and  courage!  In  these  times  of  high 
prices  every  dollar  spent  for  beer  buys  misery 
for  the  poor. 

What  reply  have  the  brewers  to  these  charges  ? 
None.  They  only  try  to  befog  the  issue.  They 
say  that  barley  is  only  fit  for  brewing  beer,  that 
it  cannot  be  used  for  human  food.  This  is  mere 
mockery.  Meat  is  made  of  grain  just  as  surely 
as  bread.  Thousands  of  cattle  have  died  upon 
the  Western  plains  since  January  i,  191 7,  because 
feed  was  lacking.  Poultry  is  being  slaughtered 
because  there  is  nothing  to  feed  it. 

But  barley,  properly  handled,  is  excellent  hu- 
man food.  Listen  to  Herbert  Hoover:  "Barley 
mixed  in  the  bread  makes  a  bread  with  as  fine 
a  texture  as  wheat.  There  is  a  large  margin  of 
saving  if  the  brewing  could  be  cut  out."  He 
was  testifying  before  the  Senate  Agricultural 
Committee  (see  pages  380,  417,  Hearings). 
Listen  to  Professor  Alonso  Taylor,  government 
food  consultant:  "In  my  opinion,  the  need  for 
grain,  and  especially  barley,  which  has  proved 
itself  valuable  as  a  flour,  is  such  as  to  make  it 
imperative  upon  us,  after  the  present  makings 
in  operation  and  under  contract  have  been  con- 
cluded, in  about  three  months,  to  cease  the  manu- 
facture of  malt  for  internal  or  export  trade  for 
brewing"  (see  Senate  Hearings,  page  438).  Lis- 
ten to  Secretary  of  Agriculture  Houston:  'The 
ease  with  which  barley  may  be  substituted  directly 
for  wheat  in  human  food  and  its  usefulness  to 
33 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

replace  wheat-milling  by-products  as  food  in  the 
production  of  the  milk  supply,  renders  its  abun- 
dant production  important"  (statement  of  April 
7,  1917).  Even  malt,  if  sterilized,  can  be  used 
in  making  bread. 

The  brewers  claim  that  their  slops  are  needed 
for  cattle  food.  A  more  impudent  absurdity 
could  not  be  imagined.  By  destroying  70,000,- 
000  bushels  of  good  grain,  we  get  22,000,000 
bushels  of  poor  cattle  food  !  There  has  been  noth- 
ing like  it  since  Lamb's  Chinaman  burned  his 
house  to  roast  his  pig.  Experts  of  the  Agricul- 
tural Department  strongly  doubt  the  necessity 
of  the  kind  of  "finishing"  given  cattle  by  brewery 
slops.  At  least  some  of  them  think  they  are  bet- 
ter food  without  it. 

At  least  the  brewers  are  saying  little  about  the 
alleged  "food  value"  of  beer.  We  give  them 
credit  for  that.  Beer  has  about  four  per  cent 
of  nutritive  material ;  less  than  the  poison  it  con- 
tains. Professor  G.  O.  Higley,  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Chemistry,  Ohio  \\'esleyan  I'niversity, 
found  the  ratio  of  proteids  in  beer  to  proteids 
in  flour  as  i  to  80;  of  carbo-hydrates  as  i  to  61 ; 
and  of  fats  as  o  to  .28.  To  furnish  a  hard-work- 
ing man  with  the  amount  of  proteids  needed  in 
a  day  it  would  be  necessary  to  give  him  108 
glasses  of  beer,  costing  $5.40.  He  would  need 
52  glasses  of  beer  for  liis  supply  of  carbo- 
hydrates and  would  pay  $2.fx)  for  them.  In 
order  to  get  nourishment  from  beer,  he  would 
have  to  give  his  entire  time  to  drinking  and 
die  at  the  end  of  the  day.  Beer  is  liquid,  cer- 
tainly, but  it  is  not  bread. 

The  German-American  Alliance  and  the 
United  States  Brewers'  Association  have 
solved  the  problem  of  destroying  food  much 
better  than  has  Von  Tirpitz.  The  submarines 
are  sinking  8,000,000  bushels  of  grain  a  year. 
The  breweries  are  destroying  70,000,000. 

'"It  is  clearly  a  ([uestion  of  beer  vs.  l)rea(l," 
said    Lord   Dcvonport,    first    food   controller   of 

34 


"LICK  THE  PLATE— LICK  THE  KAISER" 

England.  Shall  American  women  and  children 
be  underfed  in  order  that  some  American  men 
may  be  over-beered?  Shall  the  fields  of  France 
be  soaked  in  American  blood  that  slackers  may 
soak  their  bread  in  beer? 

In  the  shamble  acres  of  No  Man's  Land  young 
men  by  the  millions  are  plunging  thru  barbed 
wire  and  bursting  shells  for  our  freedom  and 
security.  They  are  freely  emptying  their  veins 
of  life's  blood  for  us.  Are  we  unwilling  to  empty 
our  glasses  for  them?  Are  we  so  little  in  ear- 
nest that  the  thought  of  the  fishes,  sucking  the 
rotten  flesh  from  the  bones  of  American  women 
and  babies  who  sailed  the  seas  under  the  stars 
and  stripes  will  not  nerve  us  to  sacrifice  a  beve- 
rage which  cannot  even  be  classed  so  high  as  a 
luxury  ? 


35 


VII 
THE  RAILWAYS  AND  SHIPS 

Pull  from  the  human  body  its  blood  vessels 
and  you  do  what  the  paralysis  of  transportation 
does  to  a  nation.  Sever  every  nerve  leading 
from  the  brain  to  the  limbs,  and  you  do  what 
would  be  done  to  Pershing's  army  by  cutting  its 
ocean  communication  with  America. 

Months  ago  the  underfed  poor  people  of  New 
York  city  were  parading  the  streets  crying, 
''Bread!  Bread!"  At  that  time  there  was  ample 
food ;  but  they  were  hungry.  Why  ?  Because 
the  docks  were  overcrowded,  warehouse  plat- 
forms were  swamped,  railroad  men  were  over- 
worked, and  freight  embargoes  held  back  the 
food  that  was  vitally  necessary  to  the  metropolis. 

Travel  is  growing  increasingly  arduous.  Pas- 
senger trains  are  being  discontinued  to  supply 
locomotives  for  freight.  Shortage  of  food  here, 
of  fuel  there,  can  be  traced  to  the  car  shortage. 

Nor  is  that  the  most  important  factor  in  the 
transportation  situation.  We  stand  or  fall  with 
Great  Britain.  And  Great  Britain  eats  from  the 
ship  terminals.  We  are  helpless  if  the  armies  of 
France  and  our  own  splendid  troops  fail.  And 
their  success  depends  abs(^lutely  upon  ample,  un- 
broken ccMumunication  with  the  .Atlantic  ports 
of  the  Tnitcd  States. 

"Build  ships!"  pleads  Lloyd  George;  and  Lord 
Northcliffe,  head  of  Britain's  war  mission  in 
America,  exhorts,  "Build  ships,  and  more  ships !" 
The  blackest  week  the  United  States  has  known 
in  a  generation  was  the  week  when  the  sub- 
marines reached  the  peak  of  their  murderous 
campaign. 

36 


THE  RAILWAYS  AND  SHIPS 

What  has  drink  to  do  with  the  railroads  and 
with  our  shipping? 

For  one  thing,  the  Hquor  trade  is  using  7,000,- 
000  tons  of  railway  transportation  annually.  If 
the  transportation  demanded  by  this  vampire 
trade  were  supplied  at  one  time,  it  would  take 
a  train  of  200,000  cars,  reaching  one  third  of  the 
way  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco !  In  this 
time  of  stress  and  burden  the  transportation  de- 
mand of  beer  is  ten  times  harder  to  bear  than  in 
normal  times.  It  is  the  straw  that  breaks  the 
camel's  back.  By  eliminating  this  factor  alone 
we  would  secure  a  working  margin  that  would 
immensely  increase  the  efficiency  of  our  railways. 
Cars  would  be  available  for  vital  needs,  millions 
of  cubic  feet  in  warehouses  would  be  saved,  the 
congestion  of  our  docks  would  be  relieved. 

Do  you  ask  why  the  docks  would  be  less 
crowded  ?  Because  even  now,  with  ships  so  valu- 
able they  are  worth  their  weight  in  human  flesh, 
they  are  being  used  to  send  drink  to  poison  our 
allies  and  drink  to  poison  the  poor  savages  of 
Africa.  Early  in  September  a  ship  arrived  at 
Tilbury,  England,  with  two  thousand  cases  of 
whisky  on  board.  There  was  no  lack  of  whisky 
in  England.  Indeed,  there  was  more  than  enough 
to  "last"  until  the  end  of  the  war  even  if  its 
end  be  remote.  There  was  enough  to  kill  thou- 
sands of  brave  British  soldiers  who,  unpoisoned 
by  rum,  would  recover  from  wounds ;  enough  to 
debauch  millions  of  English  wives  and  mothers. 
But  drink  and  brewers'  vats  have  been  moved  to 
England  in  space  which  might  carry  guns  and 
grain. 

In  March,  19 17,  there  left  from  Boston  and 
other  Massachusetts  ports,  intoxicating  liquors  to 
the  amount  of  198,434  gallons,  and  in  August, 
1917,  175,626  gallons.  From  the  port  of  New 
York,  during  the  months  from  April  to  Decem- 
ber, there  left  on  its  way  to  Africa  alcohol  to  the 
value  of  $112,464;  rum  to  the  amount  of  163,135 
gallons;  2,561  gallons  of  rye  and  bourbon,  and 

37 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

wine  and  spirits  to  the  value  of  $2,582.  The 
natives  of  Africa  are  being  slain  by  the  thousands, 
and  are  decorating  their  graves  with  empty  bot- 
tles and  demijohns  from  this  land,  which  can 
find  shipping  to  send  them  poison  but  cannot  find 
shipping  to  move  enough  troops  against  Hinden- 
burg.  It  is  but  the  continuation  of  a  wicked 
trade  which  has  been  fully  aired  in  Congressional 
hearings. 

Transportation  equivalent  to  sixty  5,000  ton 
vessels  is  being  constantly  employed  in  carrying 
drink  to  and  fro  between  the  Allies. 

The  public  knows  that  the  shipping  board  has 
been  a  trouble  crux  ever  since  its  organization  ; 
but  it  does  not  know  what  is  at  the  bottom  of 
the  ship-building  muddle.  Ships  cannot  be  built 
without  material  and  la1)or.  X^either  can  the  en- 
gines and  boilers  be  supplied  without  material  and 
labor. 

In  October,  1917,  the  ship-building  yards  of 
the  I'nited  States  were  not  running  to  sixty  per 
cent  of  their  capacity.  They  averaged  from  fifty 
per  cent  of  full  time  and  full  efticiency  at  the 
end  and  beginning  of  each  week  to  ninety  per 
cent  efficiency  and  sixty  per  cent  full  time  in  the 
middle  of  the  week.  The  Washington  Post  re- 
cently carried  the  following  headlines: 

HALT  TO  SHIP  BUILDING 


Labor    Shortage    Has    Paralyzing    Effect    on 
Navy  Program 


No  Yards  Running  Full  Time 


Work    on    Larger    Warships    Suspended    to 
Rush  Destroyer  Fleet 


The  Xcu    York  World  lioadcd  a  special  story 

from  Washington  thus:  "Xation  May  Soon  Draft 

Labor.     Shortage  Is  a  Grave  Problem.     Lack  of 

Workers  Scriouslv  Felt  in  Ship  Yards  and  Other 

38 


THE  RAILWAYS  AND  SHIPS 

War  Establishments.  \\'omcn  To  Be  Con- 
scripted Too." 

The  story  declares  that  there  is  a  labor  shortage 
of  thirty  per  cent  in  the  spruce  lumber  industry, 
vital  to  the  airplane  program. 

The  Baltimore  Sun,  itself  anti-prohibition,  also 
warns  the  country  of  serious  conditions  .in  the 
ship-building  industry  and  blames  the  delay  on 
drinking  by  workingmen.  Some  of  the  great- 
est yards  of  the  country,  according  to  the  Sun, 
are  working  less  than  one  full  shift  a  day 
because  highly  paid  workmen  are  spending 
two  or  three  days  a  week  soaking  beer  in 
saloons. 

Haste  in  building  ships  is  a  matter  of  Hfe  and 
death,  but,  declares  the  Sun,  ''certain  classes  of 
men  are  not  making  more  than  forty  to  forty- 
five  hours'  work  a  week,  and  many  are  making 
less." 

"Drinking  plays  a  bad  part  in  all  of  this.  With 
unusual  amounts  of  money  in  their  pockets  and 
indifference  to  their  jobs  or  their  country  in 
their  hearts,  large  numbers  of  the  workmen  are 
hanging  about  the  saloons  soaking  rum  into  their 
systems  and,  as  a  result,  either  staying  away 
from  work  entirely  for  days  at  a  time  or  turning 
up  unfit  to  handle  their  parts  in  the  vast  team- 
work of  modern  industry.  They  not  only  do 
not  play  their  own  parts,  but  they  weaken  the 
efiiciency  of  the  whole  industrial  machine." 

But  in  the  face  of  these  bitter  facts  cheap 
politicians  and  "kept"  newspapers  have  the 
effrontery  to  protest  against  the  injection  of  a 
"domestic  peace  time  issue" ! 


39 


VIII 
PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

Half  a  generation  ago  a  royal  prince  reached 
the  shores  of  America.  He  came  to  spin  a  Ger- 
man web. 

Of  course  he  was  welcomed. 

A  brief  time  before,  Admiral  Dewey,  in 
Manila  Bay,  had  opened  the  eyes  of  the  German 
emperor  to  the  fact  that  America  was  a  power, 
not  a  joke.  The  Kaiser  remembered  that  some 
millions  of  his  subjects  had  left  his  lands  for 
America,  and  he  was  smitten  with  a  new  and 
glorious  Idea.  That  Idea  was  to  "Make  Amer- 
ica German" !  And  Prince  Henry  came  to  do 
it. 

Some  of  these  German  milhons  who  had  come 
to  America  went  to  the  rural  districts  and  small 
towns.  They  had  become  American  to  the  back- 
bone ;  but,  of  course,  the  Kaiser  could  not  reahze 
such  a  thing.  ( )ther  Germans  had  swarmed  to 
the  cities,  and  there  most  of  them  had  fallen 
under  the  political  influence  of  the  breweries. 

Prohibition  of  the  liquor  traffic  soon  came  to 
represent  to  these  people  the  American  standard 
of  life.  The  brewers,  inspired  by  an  economic 
motive,  set  forth  against  this  American  principle 
the  German  ])rinciple  of  free  and  unrestricted 
beer.  Prohibition  and  anti-prohibition  became 
the  champions  respectively  of  Americanism  and 
Deutschtum. 

Shortly  before  the  visit  of  Prince  Henry  the 
German-American  Alliance  had  been  formed  as  a 
pro-li(|uor  organization.  It  had  already  taken 
upon  itself  tlie  character  of  an  anti- American 
"i)eutschland  iiber  Alles"  society.  To  these  peo- 
])le,  the  IVince  brought  the  doctrine  of  '*(  )nce  a 
German,  always  a  German."  He  soundetl  the 
40 


PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

call  to  allegiance  for  every  German-born  man  in 
America  and  for  every  man  with  a  drop  of  Ger- 
man blood  in  his  veins,  no  matter  how  long  he 
had  nursed  at  America's  breast. 

Von  Holleben,  the  German  minister,  showing 
an  indiscreet  zeal  in  this  crusade  to  sap  Amer- 
ica's strength,  was  summarily  sent  home  by  the 
United  States  government.  But  the  plot  pros- 
pered. "Break  the  power  of  prohibition,  and 
you  have  broken  'nativism,'  "  the  German  leaders 
were  told.  Leading  American  brewers  received 
royal  honors  and  the  brewing  organizations  al- 
most merged  into  the  Kaiser's  American  forces. 
Sixty-five  per  cent  of  the  saloon-keepers  were 
loyal  German  subjects  at  heart  if  not  by  law. 
German  papers  in  the  big  cities  combined  anti- 
Americanism  and  anti-prohibition  in  a  way  in- 
dicating clearly  that  they  must  rise  or  fall  to- 
gether. 

The  German- American  Alliance  is  reported  by 
the  Philadelphia  North  American  to  have  de- 
clared in  an  official  bulletin:  "The  National 
Alliance  is  waging  war  against  Anglo-Saxon- 
ism,  against  the  fanatical  enemies  of  personal 
liberty  and  political  freedom;  it  is  combat- 
ing narrow-minded,  benighted  knownothing- 
ism,  the  influence  of  the  British,  the  enslav- 
ing Puritanism  which  had  its  birth  in  Eng- 
land." 

By  "Puritanism"  is  meant  prohibition,  which 
these  Philistines  of  Potsdam  call  "a  shameful  and 
despicable  propaganda,"  a  "criminal  activity/' 
the  "work  of  a  dark  brood." 

It  is  the  belief  of  this  organization  that  "In 
order  to  obtain  for  German-Americanism  the 
place  in  the  sun  which  has  always  been  denied 
to  it,  it  is  absolutely  essential  that  personal 
liberty  be  guaranteed,  and  that  it  be  not  cur- 
tailed by  the  attacks  of  nativists  and  prohi- 
bitionists." 

"We  have  suffered  long  the  preachment 
that  'you  Germans  must  allow  yourselves  to 
41 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

be  assimilated,  you  must  merge  in  the  Amer- 
ican people,'  but  no  one  will  ever  find  us  pre- 
pared to  descend  to  an  inferior  level.  No! 
We  have  made  it  our  aim  to  elevate  the  others 
to  our  level.  We  will  not  allow  our  two- 
thousand  year  Kultur  to  be  trodden  down  in 
this  land.  Many  are  giving  our  German  Kul- 
tur to  this  land  of  their  children,  but  that  is 
possible  only  if  we  stand  together  and  con- 
quer that  dark  spirit  of  muckerdom  and  prohi- 
bition, just  as  Siegfried  slew  the  dragon.  Let 
us  stand  for  our  good  right  and  hold  together. 
Be  strong!     Be  strong  and  German!" 

How  thoroly  the  work  of  Dr.  Hexamer,  presi- 
dent of  the  German-American  Alliance,  was  ap- 
preciated by  the  German  emperor,  and  what  faith 
he  had  in  its  efficacy,  is  attested  by  the  fact  that 
the  Kaiser  conferred  upon  the  Doctor  the  Order 
of  the  Red  Eagle.  The  archives  of  the  British 
government  yielded  a  secret  report  of  a  war 
council  in  Potsdam  in  the  year  1908,  at  which 
the  Kaiser  made  the  following  statement  which 
is  reported  in  German  Spies  in  England,  by  Wm. 
LeQucx : 

"Even  now  I  rule  supreme  in  the  United 
States,  where  almost  one  half  of  the  popula- 
tion is  either  of  German  birth  or  German 
descent,  and  where  3,000,000  voters  do  my  bid- 
ding at  the  Presidential  elections.  No  Amer- 
ican administration  could  remain  in  power 
against  the  will  of  the  German  voters  who 
thru  that  admirable  organization,  the  Ger- 
man-American National  League  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  control  the  destinies  of  the 
vast  republic  beyond  the  sea.  If  a  man  was 
ever  worthy  of  a  high  decoration  at  my  hands, 
it  was  Herr  Dr.  Hexamer,  the  president  of 
the  League,  who  may  justly  be  termed  to  be, 
by  my  grace,  the  Acting  Ruler  of  all  Ger- 
mans in  the  United  States." 

in  its  war  against  "nativism"  the  brewers  and 
the  anti-nativists  clearlv  defined  several  salients 


PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

of  strength  which  must  be  broken  clown.  The 
American  "prejudice"  against  drinking  by 
women  and  children  must  be  overcome;  and 
recreation  centers  must  be  captured  for  beer. 
The  brewing  publications  and  German  news- 
papers were  naively  frank  in  declaring  this.  Beer 
gardens  were  opened,  the  home  beer  trade  was 
promoted  in  a  thousand  ways,  dance  halls  and 
excursion  steamers  were  made  drinking  centers. 
Courses  of  advertising  intended  to  encourage 
drinking  by  women  and  children  were  outlined 
for  local  breweries. 

As  the  w^ar  against  prohibition  and  against  the 
safety  of  the  country  progressed,  the  beer-trade 
organizations  and  the  pro-German  organization 
effected  a  connection  so  close  that  it  was  hard 
to  tell  where  the  one  left  ofif  and  the  other  be- 
gan. The  Illinois  Staats-Zeitung,  run  by  Horace 
L.  Brand,  a  Chicago  brewer,  said  editorially : 

"When  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  those 
drafted  for  military  service  realize  that  their 
country  is  going  to  make  them  victims  of 
foreign  adventure,  there  will  arise  a  conflict 
between  sentiment  and  duty  which  may 
threaten  the  internal  peace  of  the  republic." 

This  same  paper  only  a  few^  weeks  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  said : 

"We  prefer  to  sacrifice  ourselves  rather 
than  see  the  old  Fatherland  after  its  glorious 
battles  done  out  of  the  reward  of  its  victory." 

On  September  14  the  editor  of  a  brewery 
magazine  was  seized  at  San  Antonio  for  obstruct- 
ing the  operation  of  the  draft  law. 

When  the  federal  agents  on  September  11 
seized  the  Philadelphia  Tageblatt,  two  of  the 
men  they  wanted  were  Peter  Schaefer  and  Paul 
Vogel,  a  brewery  man. 

On  September  27,  191 7,  it  developed  that  the 
"mystery  woman"  who  had  furnished  large  sums 
of  money  to  finance  the  American  Embargo  Con- 
ference was  Mrs.  Carl  Buhl,  of  Chicago,  the 
daughter  of  one  brewer  and  the  wife  of  another, 
43 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

Mr.  Percy  Andreae,  who  superintends  the 
poHtical  activities  of  the  United  States  Brewers' 
Association,  himself  effected  the  creation  of  the 
"Organization  Bureau"  of  the  German-Ameri- 
can AUiance.  It  was  thru  this  "Organization 
Bureau"  that  the  joint  pohtical  purposes  of  the 
disloyal  German  element  and  brewers  were  ac- 
complished. One  of  the  field  men  who  was  doing 
work  of  this  dual  character  for  the  ''Organiza- 
tion Bureau,"  in  his  report  to  that  Bureau,  said : 

"Any  attempt  to  bring  about  a  German 
state  organization  must  have  financial  sup- 
port. I  believe  that  such  should  come  from 
the  State  Brewers'  Association;  and,  as  I 
have  already  indicated,  should  not  be  given 
direct,  but  might  pass  thru  the  hands  of  a 
middleman." 

The  beer  lobby  established  in  Washington  was 
paid  by  the  brewer,  Andreae,  who  looked  after 
the  legislative  interests  of  his  associates  in  con- 
sideration of  a  $40,000  salarv.  THIS  LOBBY 
WAS  SUPERVISED  BY  'DR.  HEXAMER, 
RECENT  HEAD  OF  THE  GERMAN-AMER- 
ICAN ALLIANCE.  THE  MAN  WHO  DE- 
CLARED GERMANS  SHOULD  NEVER 
DESCEND  TO  THE  LOWER  LEVEL  OF 
AMERICANISM! 

And  yet  beer  organs  did  not  hesitate  to  inform 
Congress  and  the  country  that  strikes  would  be 
brought  about  and  necessary  war  legislation  de- 
layed and  even  prevented  by  fililnister  tactics,  if 
beer  prohibition  stayed  in  the  Food  Bill.  In  the 
New  York  World,  which  led  the  pro-beer  fight, 
there  were  prophecies  of  "bloody  fighting,"  "war 
for  personal  liberty  at  home  instead  of  for  demo- 
cracy abroad"  and  similar  near-treasonable 
threats. 

How  have  these  pro-German  brewers  built 
such  a  mighty  power?  By  the  boycott  and  by 
political  corruption.  By  the  unfiinching  loyalty 
of  those  mainly  animated  by  pro-Germanism  to 
the  cause  of  beer  and  similar  loyalty  on  the  part 
44 


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c  r< 

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SS3 


PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

of  those  chiefly  concerned  with  beer  profits  to 
pro-Germanism. 

One  of  the  country's  leading  business  men  was 
hounded  out  of  a  great  industry  because  he  con- 
tributed to  the  Anti-Saloon  League. 

Another,  together  with  his  son,  was  forced  to 
go  to  New  York  and  formally  sign  away  his 
liberty  because  he  had  secured  the  closing  of  six 
saloons  which  were  debauching  his  workmen. 

Thousands  of  business  men,  prohibitionists  at 
heart,  are  forced  to  contribute  sums  formally 
assessed  upon  them  by  the  brewers,  under  penalty 
of  boycott.  These  contributions  are  used  to  fight 
prohibition. 

What  the  Evidence  Is 

In  Texas  the  brewers  submitted  to  a  vast  fine 
for  corruption  of  elections.  In  Pittsburgh  they 
accepted  a  fine  of  nearly  $70,000  rather  than 
allow  testimony  to  be  produced  in  court 
which  would  have  made  the  greatest  scandal 
in  the  history  of  the  republic. 

The  evidence  used  in  the  Texas  trials  was 
summarized  in  the  Congressional  Record  of  July 
6,  19 1 7.  It  tells  a  black  story  of  election  rotten- 
ness and  boycott.  The  same  things  are  known  to 
exist  in  other  States.  In  Pennsylvania,  black  as 
the  facts  made  public  are,  the  tenth  part  has  not 
been  told.  This  chapter  merely  skirts  the  fringes 
of  what  is  definitely  known.  The  homing  in- 
stinct sends  vice  and  graft  straight  and  sure  to 
the  saloon's  back  room. 

We  cite  the  following  from  the  Texas  testi- 
mony : 

Vol.  I,  p.  970,  Mr.  Leeds,  an  agent  of  the  San 
Antonio  &  Pacific  Railroad,  was  assisting  in 
prohibition  work.  One  brewery  agent  writes  to 
another  suggesting  that  the  brewers  ship  by  the 
Texas-Mexico  Road  instead.  The  loss  of  four 
or  five  carloads  of  freight  per  month  ''might  cause 
inquiry,  and  Mr.  L.  will  have  to  come  across  and 
let  others  do  the  fighting."  Paget,  one  of  these 
45 


\ 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

political  agents  of  the  brewers,  says  of  this :  "The 
railroad  management  will  not  stand  for  a  mo- 
ment such  conduct;  and.  if  a  notification  comes 
from  such  a  high  source  as  the  City  Brewery  or 
the  Lone  Star  Brewery,  Mr.  Leeds  will  be 
brought  up  with  a  round  turn.'' 

Again  on  p.  581.  Some  official  of  the  Inter- 
national and  Great  Northern  Railroad  having 
taken  part  in  Anderson  County  prohibition  elec- 
tions, the  American  Brewing  Co.  writes  "that 
each  and  every  brewery  should  withhold  all  the 
patronage  that  they  possibly  can  from  that  road. 
We  request  that  you  have  no  shipments  made 
to  us  over  the  International  and  Great  Northern 
Railroad." 

P.  973.  Autrey  telegraphs  to  Koehler:  "Mr. 
Eads,  local  agent  of  the  San  Antonio  and  Pacific 
Railroad  at  Alice,  is  vice  president  of  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  and  a  prohibition  worker.  I  think 
this  offensive  conduct  should  be  brought  to  the 
notice  of  his  superior  officials." 

A  Great  Boycott  System 

P.  149 1.  When  Mr.  Ball  was  running  for 
governor  of  Texas,  Prince,  a  Texas  brewer, 
writes  to  A.  A.  Busch.  of  Anheuser-Busch:  "I 
understand  that  Mr.  Ball's  firm  are  attorneys  for 
the  Frisco  Railroad,  in  which  your  father  is  a 
vcrv  large  stockholder ;  and,  as  there  are  many 
better  lawyers  in  the  State  than  Mr.  Ball,  if  his 
pocket  could  be  reached  by  making  a  change  of 
attorneys,  it  might  have  a  quieting  effect  on  his 
bombastic  style  of  warfare." 

In  order  to  boycott  firms  which  are  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  the  political  aims  of  the  brewers,  so- 
called  "^Manufacturers'  and  Dealers'  Associa- 
tions'' have  been  organized  in  many  states. 
\'olumes  with  printed  lists  of  members  from 
whom  brewers,  saloon-keepers,  ami  numerous 
allied  trades  arc  expected  to  buy  exchisively  are 
issued  and  distributed  to  those  purchasers. 

The  brewers  quite  generally  thruout  the  coun- 
46 


PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

try  oblige  those  to  whom  they  give  their  trade 
to  contribute  one  per  cent  on  all  bills.  This  they 
deduct  and  utilize,  as  they  openly  state,  to  finance 
anti-prohibition  undertakings.  How  extensive 
these  operations  are,  appears  from  a  sentence  in 
the  Texas  testimony.  The  national  association 
(that  is,  the  U.  S.  Brewers'  Association)  asserts 
that  there  are  over  50,000  firms  supplying  tlie 
brewing  trade  (that  is,  in  the  United  States). 
"Only  in  one  or  two  instances  was  there  any 
objection  raised  to  the  deduction."  A  sample 
letter  sent  out  is  that  on  p.  124,  Vol.  I,  of  the 
Texas  testimony. 

"Assessments"  Against  Business  Men 

Letter  of  the  Texas  Brewers'  Association  to 
the  Kansas  City  Machine  Works : 

"Dear  Sirs :  We  have  a  State-wide  prohibition 
fight  on  our  hands,  and  it  is  fast  and  furious. 
.  .  .  We  need  money,  and  are  appealing  to  all 
merchants,  manufacturers,  persons,  and  corpora- 
tions from  whom  each  of  the  breweries  in  Texas 
bought  goods  in  the  year  1907  to  give  us  i  per 
cent  of  the  amount  of  the  bill  bought  and  paid 
for.  On  this  basis  we  assess  you  the  sum  of 
$500.  Kindly  send  us  your  check  at  once,  mak- 
ing it  payable  to  the  writer  individually.   .    .    ." 

These  operations  are  carried  out  by  the  Na- 
tional Association  of  Commerce  and  Labor,  at 
the  head  of  which  is  Mr.  Percy  Andreae.  The 
records,  according  to  United  States  District  At- 
torney Humes,  of  Pittsburgh,  show  that  the 
name  of  this  organization  was  selected  because 
of  its  similarity  to  that  of  one  of  the  departments 
of  the  federal  government. 

In  a  speech  at  the  same  time  of  the  organi- 
zation of  this  association  Mr.  Andreae  describes 
the  careful  political  surveys  made  in  the  Con- 
gressional districts :  "The  value  of  this  work  to 
the  [brewing]  industry  in  each  State  wherein 
it  is  accomplished  will  be  very  appreciable,  for 
it  is  impossible  to  obtain  and  use  as  I  have  de- 
47 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

scribed  the  political  knowledge  concerning  Con- 
gressional districts  in  any  State  without  at  the 
same  time  acquiring  the  same  data  concerning 
the  counties  and  senatorial  districts  of  that  State." 

Vast  Sums  for  Politics 

Mr.  Humes  says — "The  financial  activities  of 
the  National  Association  of  Commerce  and  Labor 
in  carrying  out  this  comprehensive  plan  of  Mr. 
Andreae  are  most  interesting.  During  the  year 
1914  the  U.  S.  Brewers'  Association  turned 
over  to  Mr.  Andreae  the  sum  of  $330,138.  The 
Wholesale  Liquor  Dealers'  Association  paid 
him  $90,000.  These  items  and  miscellaneous 
contributions  which  he  received  aggregated 
in  that  year  $525,116.28.  The  only  activities 
of  Mr.  Andreae  and  his  associates  were  politi- 
cal in  nature.  They  participated  extensively  in 
numerous  State  campaigns,  using  their  funds  to 
influence  the  election  of  governors,  lieutenant- 
governors,  L'nited  States  senators,  members  of 
Congress,  and  members  of  State  legislative 
bodies. 

"The  extent  of  the  operations  of  the  United 
States  Brewers'  Association  in  1914  reached 
startling  proportions.  ...  In  1914  we  have 
an  absolute  record  of  collections  aggregating 
at  least  $999,300.88.  How  much  more  was  col- 
lected during  that  year,  of  which  we  have  no 
knowledge  because  of  the  destruction  of  the 
association  records,  we  can  make  no  estimate. 
We  do  know,  however,  that  the  bank  accounts 
which  we  have  thus  far  succeeded  in  discover- 
ing show  an  aggregate  in  the  neighborhood  of  a 
million  and  a  half  dc^llars." 

WiioLEs.vLE  "Fraud  in  Texas" 

In   their   political   activities   the  brewers   have 
attempted  to  control  large  sections  of  the  popu- 
lation voting  in  federal  elections.     The  evidence 
of  the  Texas  trials  concerning  the  manipulation 
48 


PRINCE  HENRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

of  the  Negro  vote  is  abundant.  An  agent  of  the 
brewers  writes  (p.  263)  : 

**I  have  four  thousand  cards  Hke  the  inclosed 
and  I  will  place  one  prominently  in  every  Negro 
barber  shop,  eating  house,  saloon,  and  every 
other  Negro  business  in  Texas  and  will  supple- 
ment this  advertisement  with  the  help  of  every 
Negro  official  in  secret  lodges,  every  Negro 
preacher,  and  the  Negro  newspapers  in  Texas. 
I  am  satisfied  I  will  induce  at  least  50,000  Negroes 
in  Texas  to  pay  their  poll  taxes  in  time." 

The  extent  to  which  these  operations  have 
gone  on  comes  out  on  p.  287.  Paget,  a  political 
agent  of  the  brewers,  boasts :  *Tf  I  had  ten  days 
more,  there  would  have  been  70,000  poll  taxes 
paid." 

How  the  political  work  among  Negroes  is 
masked  can  be  illustrated  by  one  instance  (p.  78)  : 

'Trior  to  1910,  one  J.  D.  Griffin,  a  Negro 
preacher,  known  as  Sinkiller  Griffin,  and  other 
Negroes  formed  an  organization  under  the  name 
of  the  Rescue  Association  of  the  United  States 
of  America  and  Africa,  and  incorporated  the 
same  under  the  laws  of  the  State,  the  charter 
granted  authorizing  it  to  engage  in  the  work 
of  rescuing  fallen  women.  Such  charter  was 
secured  in  fraud  upon  the  State  and  the  public ; 
and  the  purpose  of  such  organization  has  never 
been  such  as  named,  but  to  do  political  work 
principally  among  Negroes  for  the  Texas 
Brewers'  Association." 

Widespread  and  successful  attempts  to  control 
the  labor  vote  are  indicated  in  this  from  Mr. 
Lowry  Humes'  Memorandum  to  the  Federal 
Court  at  Pittsburgh : 

An  official  of  the  Brewers'  political  organiza- 
tion in  his  report  concerning  a  particular  State 
remarked  : 

"I  went  over  the  State  with  a  view  of  meeting 
with  the  most  influential  labor  men  and  in  secur- 
ing their  support  now  and  in  the  fight  that  may 
come ;  and  I  am  sure  if  it  is  necessary  we  can 
49 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

muster  to  our  support  all  the  labor  men  in  the 
State  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  and  they  believe 
they  can  deliver  the  union-labor  vote." 

Air.  Hexamer,  previously  mentioned,  head  of 
the  German-American  Alliance,  is,  or  was,  on 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Brewers'  so- 
called  National  Association  of  Commerce  and 
Labor.  Under  his  direction  was  carried  on 
not  only  most  of  the  pro-German  propaganda 
but  a  large  part  of  the  beer  propaganda  as 
well. 

Joseph  Keller,  the  president  of  the  School 
Board  of  Indianapolis,  was  the  secretary  of  the 
National  German-American  Alliance.  An  ar- 
ticle in  the  Indianapolis  News  of  May  24,  1917, 
exposinp^  his  operations,  says :  "Keller,  accord- 
ing to  the  facts  gathered  by  the  government, 
was  using  the  organization  bureau  of  the  Ger- 
man-American Alliance  to  elect  State  officers, 
United  States  senators,  congressmen,  and 
members  of  the  Legislatures  in  States  where 
an  effort  was  made  to  pass  laws  regulating 
the  liquor  traffic.  In  1914  he  spent  about  $38,- 
888  in  his  i)roi)aganda  in  favor  of  the  liquor  in- 
terests, and  his  work  was  not  only  in  Indiana  but 
extended  to  ( )hio,  Illinois,  and  Texas.  The  $38,- 
888  that  Keller  spent  for  the  licptor  interests 
came,  the  investigation  by  the  government  shows, 
from  the  I'nited  States  Brewing  Association  and 
was  paid  by  members  of  that  Association  in  a 
roundabout  way  so  that  the  public  would  not 
detect  it. 

Mr.  Humes  says : 

"The  government  is  not  in  a  position  because 
of  destruction  of  records  to  establish  definitely 
the  total  amount  of  money  that  was  raised  and 
expended  by  the  Pennsylvania  State  lirewers' 
Association  for  its  political  purposes  in  1914; 
but  the  records  of  one  bank  establish  that  there 
Zi'as  paid  into  the  treasury  of  the  Pennsyhauia 
State  Breii'ers'  dissociation  for  its  political  pur- 
poses in  igi4  the  sum  of  $^49,(^^(^2.11,  and  that 
50 


PRIi\XE  llExXRY'S  CONSPIRACY 

diirijig  thai  same  year  hi  its  efforts  to  elect  the 
slate  zi'hicli  it  Jiad  selected  there  zvas  expended 
from  this  one  bank  account  alone  the  sum  of 
$j.f6,6p6.gi.  There  may  be  other  bank  accounts 
which  the  government  has  not  l)een  fortunate 
enough  to  discover." 

*'The  defendant  companies  thru  this  Associa- 
tion undertook  to  control  the  nomination  and 
election  of  practically  every  public  officer  elected 
within  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  from 
governor  down,  including  members  of  Congress 
and  United  States  senators.  At  a  conference 
called  by  its  representatives  in  1914,  candidates 
for  Legislature  and  State  Senate,  for  members  of 
Congress,  for  United  States  senators,  and  for 
governor  were  selected  and  not  only  the  individ- 
ual effort  but  the  moneys  contributed .  to  this 
association  by  the  brewing  companies  who  have 
entered  pleas  in  this  case  were  used  to  put  thru 
the  slate  thus  selected." 

The  Right  of  Petition  Attacked 

Finally  the  right  of  petition  to  Congress  is 
being  attacked  by  the  brewers'  organizations.  A 
large  group  of  Chicago  business  men  appealed 
to  Congress  to  pass  the  Barkley-Webb  amend- 
ments to  the  Lever  bill.  Each  of  these  firms  re- 
ceived immediately  a  bullying  letter  from  A.  P. 
Daniels,  the  manager  of  the  Chicago  Manufact- 
urers and  Dealers  Association. 

One  must  have  a  sneaking  admiration  for  the 
copperhead.  He  is  all  snake  from  the  end  of  his 
tail  to  the  tip  of  his  fang.  He  is  not  fool  enough 
to  warn  his  enemy,  as  does  the  chivalrous  rattle- 
snake. He  is  intent  only  on  shooting  his  poison 
into  hostile  veins. 

So  with  the  beer  trade.  The  whisky  business 
is  evil,  but  its  vileness  is  far  from  perfect.  But 
the  beer  trade's  venom  is  pure.  Its  treason  is 
perfect.     It  is  the  copperhead  of  the  trade. 

L^pon  the  outbreak  of  war,  at  least  some  of  the 
leading  distillers,  as  for  instance,  Mr.  E.  H.  Tay- 
51 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

lor,  of  Kentucky,  declared  for  immediate  national 
prohibition  for  the  period  of  the  war.  These 
men,  vicious  as  their  trade  has  been,  are  at  least 
loyal  Americans.  Their  distilleries  have  been 
closed.  But  the  beer  trade,  owning  most  of  the 
saloons  and  responsible  for  their  vileness,  disloyal 
thruout,  has  been  spared  and  has  been  granted 
a  monopoly.  It  is  viciously  unfair.  If  a  very 
large  number  of  the  prominent  brewers  of  the 
country  would  not  welcome  the  German  crown 
prince  with  a  conquering  army,  they  have  cer- 
tainly been  talking  in  their  sleep  for  many  years 
past. 

These  creatures,  the  principal  support  of  or- 
ganizations fairly  festering  with  treason,  attack 
the  American  government,  the  American  people 
and  the  American  genius  whenever  it  is  safe  to 
do  so;  and  they  refrain  only  when  it  is  unsafe 
to  do  so.  To  their  beer-logged  brains,  America 
is  already  forfeit  to  the  bicr-gartcns  of  Prussia 
and  Bavaria.  When  the  nation  desires  to  con- 
serve its  food  and  energies  by  suspending  the 
manufacture  of  beer  they  sweat  Budweiser. 

If  the  Kaiser  ever  stands  astride  the  prostrate 
form  of  America,  we  will  find  the  beer  trade  tak- 
ing a  last  kick  at  the  corpse  and  saying,  **So 
passes  the  abominable  remnant  of  Puritanism !" 
And  if  that  day  comes  we  may  well  j^lace  above 
America's  grave  that  verse  from  the  London 
Sj)ectator  which  reads : 

"Here  lies  a  race,  of  no  armed  foe  afraid. 

Yet  self-consigned  to  doom  by  craven   fear, 
Lest  it  should  hurt  the  feclinps  of  a  trade 

That  stole  its  bread  to  drug  its  brain  with  beer!" 


52 


IX 
BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

What  is  this  product  of  a  dislo}al  trade  in 
whose  behalf  we  discriminate  against  the  women 
and  children  of  America? 

Beer  causes  the  consumption  of  more  alcohol 
than  does  whisky;  it  has  no  appreciable  food 
value ;  its  ravages  upon  the  human  body  are 
fearful;  it  produces  the  "beer  Philistinism," 
which  has  made  Germany  what  it  is  to-day ;  it 
causes  more  drunkenness  than  any  other  single 
liquor.  The  "keep-beer-prohibition''  experiments 
have  always  failed. 

The  brewers  still  dare  to  point  to  Germany 
as  an  example  of  the  ideal  of  universal  beer- 
drinking;  but,  even  if  a  German  example  were 
an  appropriate  one  at  this  time,  the  facts  from 
Germany  would  still  point  unerringly  to  the 
necessity  of  beer  prohibition. 

"The  result  of  extolling  beer  as  the  mightiest 
enemy  of  whisky  and  brandy  has  been  that  the 
consumption  of  the  distilled  liquors  has  changed 
very  little  while  to  these  liquors  has  been  added 
beer,  the  use  of  which  has  led  to  a  great  and 
still  increasing  beer-alcoholism.  The  brutalizing 
effect  of  beer-alcoholism  is  shown  most  clearly 
by  the  fact  that  in  Germany  crimes  of  personal 
violence,  particularly  dangerous  bodily  injuries, 
occur  most  frequently  in  Bavaria,  where  there 
is  the  highest  consumption  of  beer,"  said  Dr. 
Hugo  Hoppe,  the  famous  nerve  specialist  of 
Konigsberg,  Germany ;  and  Dr.  Charles  Gilbert 
Davis,  of  Chicago,  evidently  agrees  with  him, 
for  he  arraigns  beer  in  the  following  vigorous 
language : 

S3 


THE  WOODEX  HORSE 

'Tt  is  my  professional  opinion,  after  observa- 
tion of  many  years  in  the  practice  of  medicine, 
that  beer  is  doing  more  harm  to  humanity  than 
all  other  alcoholics. 

*'Beer  produces  disease  of  the  stomach,  kidneys, 
heart,  and  blood  vessels.  Owing  to  the  diuretic 
effect  of  the  hops,  the  alcohol  in  the  beer  is 
diverted  toward  the  kidneys,  which  probably  ac- 
counts for  its  destructive  action  on  those  organs. 
It  causes  a  deposit  of  morbid  fat  in  the  body, 
especially  around  the  heart,  enlarges  that  organ, 
and  increases  the  work  of  the  heart  and  blood 
vessels,  manifested  by  the  fatigue  and  shortness 
of  breath  of  all  beer  drinkers. 

*'A  man  cannot  use  beer  daily  for  any  great 
length  of  time  and  not  manifest  some  physio- 
logical deficiency." 

"Professor  Stengel  in  his  great  work,  a  transla- 
tion from  Jiigensen  of  Tiibingen  and  Schrotter 
of  Vienna,  draws  attention  to  what  he  calls  the 
'beer  heart.'  He  says:  'Bavaria,  especially 
Munich,  is  its  home  par  excellence,  and  the  peo- 
ple in  that  country  in  every  class  of  society  fall 
victim  to  this  form  of  heart  disease.' 

*T>eer  deposits  fat  around  the  heart,  weakens 
the  muscular  walls,  thickens  and  enlarges  the 
ventricles,  and  if  continued,  ultimately  cuts  short 
the  life  of  the  individual. 

"All  of  this  has  been  proven  time  and  again 
by  the  post  mortems  of  Bollinger,  who  has  ex- 
amined and  weighed  the  hearts  of  many  beer 
drinkers.  This  is  a  terrible  scientific  arraign- 
ment of  beer,  but  it  is  the  truth,  and  truth  is  the 
voice  of  God." 

Dr.  John  M.  Dodson,  dean  of  the  Medical  De- 
partment of  the  University  of  Chicago,  gave  as 
his  opinion  that  beer  is  even  more  deleterious 
to  health  than  the  stronger  drinks. 

Dr.  Struempell,  a  German  physiologist  of  high 
standing,    does   not   tolerate    for   a   moment   the 
suggestion  that  beer  is  less  of  a  social  enemy  than 
other  liquors,  for  he  says : 
54 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

"Nothing  is  more  erroneous  from  the  physi- 
cian's standpoint  than  to  think  of  diminishing  the 
destructive  effects  of  alcohohsm  by  substituting 
beer  for  other  alcohohc  drinks,  or  that  the  victims 
of  drink  are  found  only  in  those  countries  where 
whisky  helps  the  people  of  a  low  grade  of  cul- 
ture to  forget  their  poverty  and  misery." 

The  Beer  Drinker  Gets  More  Alcohol 

The  belief  that  beer  should  not  come  under  the 
condemnation  so  frequently  meted  out  to  whisky 
is  traceable  to  the  common  impression  that  beer 
drinkers  consume  much  less  alcohol  than  whisky 
drinkers.  But  those  who  believe  this  overlook 
the  fact  that  the  man  who  drinks  four  per  cent 
beer  usually  takes  ten  times  as  much  as  a  man 
who  takes  forty  per  cent  whisky.  The  United 
States  Internal  Revenue  commissioner,  on  page 
675  of  the  statistical  abstract,  gives  the  per  capita 
consumption  of  distilled  spirits  and  beer  in  1914 
and  their  respective  alcoholic  content,  as  follows : 

Gallons  Gallons  of 

Used  Alcohol 

Distilled  spirits.. 1.46        0.584 

Malt  liquors 20.51         0.820 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  per  capita 
consumption  of  alcohol  from  beer  in  19 14  was 
forty  per  cent  greater  than  that  from  whisky. 

Professor  Kraepelin,  of  the  University  of 
Munich,  says  that  at  one  banquet  of  professional 
men  in  Berlin  there  was  consumed  during  the 
evening,  by  four  thousand  persons,  15,382  bottles 
of  wine,  4.646  pints  of  beer,  and  300  bottles  of 
cognac.  Professor  Kraepelin  has  also  stated 
that  13,000  persons  become  victims  of  alcohol 
each  year  in  Germany,  and  that  one  fifth  of  all 
mental  disorders  are  attributable  to  alcoholic 
liquors. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  the  less  concen- 
tration of  alcohol  in  beer  makes  that  beverage 
55 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

less  dangerous.     During  a  recent  court  trial  in 
Chicago  a  medical  witness  was  asked: 

''Does  the  rate  or  degree  of  oxidation  depend 
upon  the  concentration  of  alcohol?''  He  an- 
swered, "Not  at  all  on  the  concentration."  To 
the  further  question,  "Would  the  stimulant  and 
narcotic  action  of  forty-eight  drops  of  alcohol  be 
greater  or  less  if  given  in  twenty  per  cent  or 
fifty-five  per  cent  dilution?"  "It  would  be  in- 
distinguishable," he  answered,  "just  as  the 
narcotic  and  stimulant  effect  of  the  same  dose 
of  alcohol  is  indistinguishable  whether  it  is  given 
in  the  form  of  whisky  or  in  the  form  of  beer." 

The  ''Philistinism"  of  the  Beer  Drixker 

Professor  Rudolf  Eucken,  possibly  the  great- 
est philosopher  Germany  has  produced,  declares 
that  his  country  must  give  up  beer,  which  "breeds 
the  wretched  type  of  beer-Philistine  with  which 
everyone  is  familiar." 

The  "Philistine"  is  the  incorrigible  barbarian 
whose  thickness  of  intellect  cannot  be  penetrated 
by  any  appeal  of  poetry  or  art ;  whose  heart  can 
never  be  touched  by  the  feelings  of  kindness  and 
mercy  which  appeal  to  the  undebauched.  The 
Philistine  of  the  Bible  could  not  be  converted, 
and  it  was  impossible  to  live  at  peace  with  him. 
He  was  the  eternal  scourge,  the  Hun  of  that  day. 
He  has  a  modern  counterpart  in  the  product  of 
"Kultur,"  with  wIk^iu  con(iuest  by  fire  and  sword 
is  the  highest  expression  of  strength,  bestial 
revelry  the  highest  expression  of  pleasure. 

11ie  Scientific  American  says: 

"The  most  dangerous  classes  of  ruffians  in 
our  large  cities  are  beer  drinkers.  Intellect- 
ually a  stupor  amounting  almost  to  paralysis 
arrests  the  reason,  changing  all  the  higher 
faculties  into  a  mere  animalism,  sensual,  self- 
ish, sluggish,  varied  only  with  paroxysms  of 
anger,  senseless  and  brutal." 

it  continues  its  unflattering  remarks  as  fol- 
lows: 

56 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

*Tn  appearance  the  beer  drinker  may  be  the 
picture  of  health,  but  in  reaUty  he  is  most  in- 
capable of  resisting  disease.  A  slight  injury,  a 
severe  cold,  or  a  shock  to  the  body  or  mind  will 
commonly  provoke  acute  disease,  ending  fatally. 
Compared  with  other  inebriates  who  use  dififerent 
kinds  of  alcohol,  he  is  more  incurable  and  more 
generally  diseased.  It  is  our  observation  that 
beer  drinking  in  this  country  produces  the  very 
lowest  kind  of  inebriety,  closely  allied  to  criminal 
insanity." 

Dr.  Fiessinger,  editor  of  a  Paris  medical 
periodical,  declares  that  *'Beer  makes  people 
ferocious  and  beastly." 

The  Pacific  Medical  Journal  of  this  country 
supplements  this  testimony:  ''Of  all  intoxicating 
drinks,  beer  is  the  most  animalizing;  beyond  all 
others  it  qualifies  for  deliberate  and  unprovoked 
crime." 

The  fact  is  generally  acknowledged.  Said  one 
wife,  "When  my  husband  drinks  whisky,  he  soon 
gets  stupid ;  but  when  he  drinks  beer,  he  runs 
after  me  with  a  knife." 

A  woman  of  forty-five,  with  an  eleven-year-old 
boy,  was  found  by  the  police,  near  Hoboken,  New 
Jersey,  nearly  dead  from  exposure.  There  was 
a  hotel  near  by  where  she  might  have  had  shelter, 
but  she  refused  it  because  there  was  beer  on  the 
premises.  This  illustrates  in  a  striking  way  the 
popular  recognition  of  the  beastly  qualities  im- 
parted by  constant  use  of  beer. 

The  Experience  of  Germany 

Kraepelin,  one  of  the  best  known  of  German 
scientists,  in  speaking  of  Munich,  says :  'The 
daily  amount  of  beer  there  runs  from  four  to 
eight  quarts;  and  about  forty  per«cent  of  these 
beer  drinkers  add  small  amounts  of  distilled 
liquors,  and  some  men  drink  daily  ten,  fifteen, 
and  twenty  quarts."  This  certainly  does  not  in- 
dicate that  beer  tends  to  create  "temperance"  in 
that  province. 

57 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Tilton,  in  the  Survey  for  Febru- 
ary 24,  1 91 7,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  beer 
has  been  found  to  be  the  chief  alcoholic  cause 
of  disease  in  Germany.    She  says  : 

"Noted  investigators  of  this  disease-maker  were 
Bauer  and  Bollinger.  They  found  that  out  of 
5,700  autopsies  conducted  in  a  series  of  years  in 
the  Pathological  Institute  of  ^lunich,  only  six 
women  (the  more  temperate  sex)  had  died  of 
that  enlargement  of  the  heart  afterward  called 
'beer  heart.'  But  one  out  of  every  sixteen  males 
had  died  of  it.  Sendtner,  following  up  these 
researches,  found  that  while  the  general  death 
rate  elsewhere  (according  to  the  Gothaer  Life 
Insurance)  was  5.8  from  heart  disease,  in  beer- 
soaked  ^Munich  it  was  11.9.  He  also  found  that 
brewery  hands  in  Munich  had  an  even  higher 
death  rate  from  heart  disease  than  did  the  Munich 
population  in  general." 

Professor  \  on  Strucmpcll,  above  quoted,  ex- 
presses himself  at  greater  length,  thus : 

"Formerly  whisky  and  brandy  were  the  uni- 
versal evildoers,  the  only  despised  drinks  as 
against  'noble'  wine  and  'harmless'  beer.  At 
present  we  know  that  in  practice  the  injurious 
effects  of  beer  are  at  least  as  frequent,  if  not, 
indeed,  more  frequent,  than  those  of  distilled 
liquor. 

"For,  altho  the  percentage  of  alcohol  (beer  2 
to  4  per  cent),  is  not  especially  high,  yet  this 
low  percentage  is  counteracted  by  the  great 
quantity  drunk ;  100  cubic  centimeters  of  beer 
contain  only  3  grams  of  pure  alcohol,  but  a  liter 
contains  30  grams.  A  moderate  beer  drinker, 
who  daily  drinks  his  five  liters,  thus  gets  every 
day  150  grams  of  absolute  alcoln^l  into  his  body, 
h'inally  it  nuist  be  noted  that  perhaps  beer  con- 
tains besides  alcc^hol  other  injurious  substances 
from  the  hops,  whose  elTect  is  also  to  be  taken 
into  account." 

Other  eminent  European  scientists  and  doctors 
speak  as  follows : 

58 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

Professor  Emil  Kraepelin:  "In  the  production 
of  alcoholism  in  Germany,  beer  undoubtedly  plays 
the  chief  role.  It  must  be  conceded  that  beer  is 
capable  of  producing  typical  delirium  tremens." 

Professor  Gustav  von  Bunge :  *'No  other  drink 
[referring  to  beer]  is  so  insidious.  It  has  been 
in  Germany  worse  than  the  whisky  pest  because 
more  apt  to  lead  to  immoderate  drinking." 

Professor  ^lobius,  Leipsic :  'T  know  little  of 
whisky  and  wine-drinkers.  With  us  it  is  beer 
that  ruins  the  people." 

Dr.  Johannes  Leonhart,  a  distinguished  scien- 
tist:  "The  question  concerning  alcohol  is  not 
whether  Smith  or  Jones  believes  that  he  can  take 
two  or  three  glasses  a  day  without  harm,  but 
how  is  it  possible  to  diminish  the  immense  amount 
of  injury  from  it  that  the  whole  German  people 
suffers." 

Professor  Forel,  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Insanity  (1900)  : 

"One  only  needs  to  study  in  Germany  the  'beer 
jokes,'  beer  conversation,  and  beer  literature. 
They  have  stifled  in  young  Germany  the  ideal- 
ism, the  taste  for  the  classics  and  the  finer  men- 
tal pleasures  throughout  broad  parts  of  the  nation 
and  in  both  sexes,  to  an  extent  that  makes  one 
cry  for  help.  Among  the  academic  youth  of 
Germany  the  drinking  of  beer  has  truly  killed 
ideals  and  ethics  and  has  produced  an  incredible 
vulgarity." 

Similar  opinions  are  held  in  other  countries 
where  they  consume  beer  and  "light  liquors." 
Sully-Prudhomme  is  responsible  for  this  state- 
ment, which  hardly  jibes  with  what  the  brewers 
tell  us : 

"All  in  all,  my  opinion  as  to  alcohol  in  all  its 
forms  is,  that  it  is  fitted,  thanks  to  the'  devasta- 
tion it  brings  about  in  the  nervous  system,  to 
animalize  people  in  all  grades  of  society  and, 
sooner  or  later,  to  annihilate  the  superiority  which 
man  has  slowly  acquired  over  the  anthropoid 
ape." 

59 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

Even  in  Germany  the  government  authorities 
in  the  interest  of  efficiency  are  showing  all  the 
hostility  they  dare  to  the  use  of  beer.  A  docu- 
ment issued  to  the  German  soldiers  says : 

"A  glass  of  beer  costing  25  pfennigs  [about 
6  cents]  has  no  more  food  value  than  a  piece 
of  cheese  that  could  be  bought  for  one 
pfennig.  To  call  beer  liquid  bread  is  there- 
fore wholly  unjustifiable." 

A  recent  testimonial  comes  from  a  source  that 
can  by  no  means  be  said  to  be  prejudiced  to 
prohibition.  England  found  soon  after  the  out- 
break of  war  that  she  must  curb  the  ravages  of 
the  liquor  traffic,  so  the  government  put  the  en- 
tire matter  into  the  hands  of  the  British  Board 
of  Control,  of  which  Lord  D'Abernon  is  chair- 
man.    In  October,  1916,  he  made  this  statement: 

"In  London  at  various  periods  in  the  early 
part  of  1916  a  total  number  of  903  cases  of 
drunkenness  were  analyzed,  of  w^hom  566 
were  men  and  337  women.  Dividing  the  cases 
according  to  cause  of  drunkenness  it  was 
found  that  40  per  cent  had  become  drunk  on 
beer  or  stout;  35  per  cent  on  spirits  excluding 
rum;  8  per  cent,  on  rum;  10  per  cent,  on 
spirits  and  beer;  and  4  per  cent  on  other 
drinks.  The  remaining  17  per  cent  did  not 
know  the  nature  of  their  drink." 

Professor  Daly,  professor  of  geology  at  Har- 
vard, attributes  the  brutalities  of  official  Ger- 
many t(^  the  drinkiii,2:  of  hcor. 

"I  venture  the  hypothesis,"  he  says,  "that 
lifelong  drinking  of  mild  beer  has  been  one 
of  the  most  potent  causes  for  the  amazing 
brutalities  of  official  Germany.  I'licsc  crimes 
have  been  ordered  by  men  who  for  decades  have 
been  poisoned  by  beer.  In  time  of  peace  and 
quiet  the  poison  causes  derangement  of  brain 
tissue,  often  expressed  merely  in  some  form  of 
sentimentality,  plain  or  maudlin.  If,  however, 
the  victim  is  put  under  stress,  his  nervous  disorder 
is  likelv  to  lead  to  bad  temper  and  bad  judgment, 
60 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

with  endless  possibilities  in  the  way  of  loss  of 
dignity,  poise,  and  the  sense  of  human  fellow- 
ship." 

To  the  hypothetical  retort  that  as  much  alcohol 
per  capita  is  drunk  in  England  and  France  as  in 
Germany,  he  answers:  "The  Germanic  peoples 
are  the  only  great  group  who  feed  alcohol  to 
babies  or  very  young  children  of  the  middle  or 
upper  classes.  If  the  baby  has  not  been  already 
prenatally  damaged  because  of  beer  drunk  by 
his  mother,  he  still  runs  the  risk  of  poisoning 
from  the  alcohol-bearing  milk  of  a  drinking 
mother  or  wet-nurse.  The  child  grows  to  man- 
hood, drinking  alcohol  and  continually  handi- 
capped in  his  development  of  cerebral,  and  there- 
fore moral,  control. 

''On  the  other  hand,  nearly  all  the  alcohol 
drunk  in  France  and  England  is  consumed  after 
the  formative  years  of  childhood — distinctly  less- 
ening the  danger  of  permanent  cerebral  degen- 
eration. The  drunkards  of  France  and  the  Brit- 
ish Isles  are,  as  elsewhere,  brutal  and  mean; 
but,  fortunately  for  the  good  name  of  the  govern- 
ments of  these  two  countries,  many  men  of  the 
ruling  classes,  the  men  who  issue  orders,  are 
not  addicted  to  the  daily  use  of  alcohol,  either 
in  youth  or  maturity." 

And  he  ends  his  exposition  of  the  part  that 
beer  has  played  in  the  great  war  with  a  quotation 
from  the  elder  Moltke,  who  once  said:  ''Beer 
is  a  far  more  dangerous  enemy  to  Germany  than 
all  the  armies  of  France." 

A  German  on  Beer-Stupidity 

The  German  immigration  to  America  may  be 
divided  into  two  classes.  The  one  class,  embrac- 
ing the  majority  of  these  people,  came  to  accept 
American  standards  and  offer  variations  which 
were  in  the  general  direction  of  original  Amer- 
ican character-development.  This  class  is  found 
principally  in  the  rural  districts  and  the  small 
towns.  It  is  beyond  praise  for  the  strength  of 
6i 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

its  principles  and  intellectual  activity,  its  whole- 
hearted loyalty  and  incorruptible  morality. 

The  other  class  embraces  those  who  either  had 
a  financial  interest  in  the  beer  trade  or  fell  under 
the  influence  of  those  who  have  such  an  interest. 
This  class  is  characterized  by  beer-degeneracy, 
which  shows  itself  in  stupidity,  immorality,  and 
disloyalty.    Lager  makes  fat  hearts  and  fat  heads. 

It  was  of  this  class  that  Professor  Adolphe 
Stille,  of  Leipsic,  wrote  in  Die  Alkolofrage: 

"The  injurious  effects  of  the  habitual  moderate 
use  of  beer  stand  out  nowhere  so  conspicuously 
as  in  the  United  States  of  America,  because  there 
one  finds  material  for  comparison  which  is 
scarcely  obtainable  elsewhere :  on  the  one  hand 
the  total  abstinent  Anglo-Americans ;  on  the 
other,  the  Germans  who  almost  without  exception 
are  given  to  the  daily  use  of  beer. 

Where  Are  the  Active  Old  Beer-Drinkers? 

"Among  these  circumstances  I  put  first  the 
striking  fact,  which  was  a  problem  to  me  during 
the  seventies  and  eighties,  that  there  was  a  much 
higher  death  rate  during  the  active  years  among 
our  Germans  than  among  the  Anglo-Americans. 
The  German  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  hand 
laborers  die  in  strikingly  large  numbers  shortly 
before  or  soon  after  their  fiftieth  year,  and  we  do 
not  find  among  them  those  active,  tranquil- 
minded,  gray-haired  men  over  seventy  that  are 
so  common  among  the  Anglo-Americans. 

Who  Lev\d  in  Culture  and  Science? 

"A  second  noticeable  difference  is  that  the  Ger- 
mans in  America  show  far  less  interest  than  the 
Anglo-Americans  in  intellectual  matters — in 
science,  culture,  and  public  offices.  The  city  of 
Saint  Louis,  for  example,  during  the  eighties, 
contained  over  100,000  Germans,  but  tliere  was 
not  a  single  German  bookstore  worthy  of  the 
name.  Schiller,  Goethe,  and  Heine  could  be 
bought,  it  is  true,  but  thev  seldom  were  for  any 
62' 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

other  purpose  than  as  Christmas  or  birthday  pres- 
ents, but  whether  they  were  ever  read  or  not  is 
another  question.  And  of  German  scientific 
books  there  were  scarcely  any  in  Saint  Louis, 
except  a  few  medical  books  used  by  German 
physicians. 

The  Clubs  That  Are  Only  Beer  Clubs 

"The  influence  of  beer-drinking  as  a  disturbing 
element  in  all  kinds  of  German  societies  is  al- 
ready evident  in  America.  Every  club,  every 
society,  whether  for  bowling,  music,  gymnastics, 
target  practice,  dramatics,  is  on  the  inside  simply 
a  beer  club.  How  many  a  Turnverein  has 
pledged  itself  in  the  'foaming  glass'  to  take  up 
intellectual  matters,  and  has  provided  for  a 
library  and  reading  room ;  but  the  reading  room 
soon  stood  empty,  while  the  beer  hall  was  full. 

*Tt  is  plainly  evident  that  efforts  for  advance- 
ment among  the  Germans  in  America  are 
drowned  in  beer,  for  the  same  conditions  are 
repeated  in  all  cities.  The  German  takes  little 
interest  in  public  affairs  except  when  it  is  a  ques- 
tion relating  to  beer;  then  he  rises  in  wrath  and 
fights  for  'personal  liberty,'  that  is,  liberty  to 
drink  beer,  especially  on  Sunday  and  at  band 
concerts. 

Dullness  Not  Due  to  Blood  But  to  Beer 

''One  very  perplexing  thing,  which  during  the 
eighties  I  had  not  yet  attributed  to  beer,  w^as  the 
fact  that  the  German  children  in  the  American 
schools  (at  least  in  the  large  cities)  are  con- 
sidered rather  dull.  'Slow  and  plodding,'  is  the 
term  applied  to  them.  •  This  was  particularly  the 
case  among  the  children  of  South  Saint  Louis, 
where  there  are  many  large  breweries.  There 
the  results  of  all  the  half-year  examinations  for 
promotion  to  the  high  school  presented  much 
worse  showing  than  in  other  parts  of  the  city, 
and  the  pupils  there  were,  almost  without  excep- 
tion, children  of  men  engaged  in  the  breweries. 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  German  chil- 
dren were  slower  and  less  ready  in  comprehen- 
sion, especially  as  their  deficiency  showed  itself 
most  clearly  in  mathematical  calculations. 

''That  this  stupidity  is  a  special  German  charac- 
teristic I  never  would  admit,  and  the  conviction 
was  finally  forced  upon  me  that  it  was  the  beer 
that  was  to  blame  here,  just  as  it  was  in  nullify- 
ing attempts  of  advancement  in  literary  and 
scientific  pursuits  among  Germans  in  America. 

'Tn  the  year  1900  I  came  back  to  Germany 
to  remain.  Here  I  was  struck  by  the  appearance 
of  premature  age,  lack  of  alertness  and  inclina- 
tion for  work  in  the  German,  so  different  from 
the  Anglo-American.  The  conclusion  was  un- 
avoidable that  here  is  made  clear  the  incalculable 
damage  growing  out  of  our  German  drinking 
customs." 

Abstinent  Americans  Are  ^Ierry 

Professor  Walter  Rauschenbusch,  of  Rochester, 
New  York,  in  a  remarkable  address  at  Dessau, 
Germany,  warned  the  German  people  that  their 
brilliant  natural  capacities  were  being  dulled  and 
perverted  by  the  insidious  influences  of  beer- 
drinking.  He  called  attention  to  the  practical 
absence  of  social  drinking  in  America  and  said : 

"The  Americans  are  abstemious  on  such  oc- 
casions, and  for  that  very  reason  they  are  jolly. 
They  laugh  much  more  than  the  Germans ;  they 
are  not  without  the  joy  of  living." 

Professor  Rauschenbusch  also  attacked  the 
"crowd  suggestion"  in  Germany  as  assaulting 
the  personal  liberty  of  the  abstainer  and  pointed 
to  the  effects  of  beer-drinking  as  indicating  its 
brutalizing  power: 

Germany's  Best  Sacrifice  to  Drink 

"When  we  look  more  closely  at  German  life 

we  see  that  the  drinking  habit  is  not  harmless. 

The   coarsest,    most   brutal    scenes   that    I    have 

ever  witnessed  in  all  my  life  were  not  in  Amer- 

64 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

ica  but  in  Gernianw  We  see  continually  how 
many  lives  are  spoiled  by  drink.  But  we  see  that 
also  in  Germany  among  a  class  of  young  men 
who  are  almost  immune  in  America — the  edu- 
cated young  man. 

'T  have  been  educated  partly  in  Germany  and 
partly  in  America,  and  the  friends  of  my  youth 
are  in  both  countries.  Among  the  American 
friends  of  my  \outh  I  do  not  know  a  single  one 
who  has  been  injured  by  drink,  but  among  my 
friends  and  relatives  and  schools  fellows  in  Ger- 
many I  know  a  large  number  who  have  been 
ruined  in  the  saddest  way,  so  that  the  most  heart- 
breaking family  tragedies  have  occurred. 

"It  is  worth  your  while  to  think  about  this  and 
ask  yourselves  why  in  so  many  of  the  cultivated 
families  of  Germany  the  social  drinking  habit 
demands  so  many  more  victims  than  it  does  in 
similar  circles  in  America. 

'Think  only  of  the  many  German  men,  poets 
and  thinkers,  who  have  been  ruined  by  alcohol. 
I  remember  some  of  the  sweetest  and  dearest 
names  in  our  German  literature  ruined  by  drink. 
I  know  of  only  one  among  the  Americans — 
Edgar  Allan  Poe — and  he  belonged  to  a  time  be- 
fore the  total  abstinence  movement  began. 

"If  we  look  thru  our  German  history,  we  see 
that  many  of  our  intellectual  heroes  have  suf- 
fered from  chronic  alcoholism ;  and  we  learn  that 
all  our  German  history  has  been  more  deeply  in- 
fluenced by  the  chronic  alcoholism  of  some  of  the 
chief  leaders  than  most  of  us  would  think. 

German  Social  Life  Debased  and  En- 
dangered BY  Alcohol 

"And  we  see  still  more  the  danger  of  our 
social  drinking  habits.  So  many  abnormally  red- 
dened faces,  so  many  eyes  wath  baggy  eyelids ! 
Two  things  struck  me  immediately  on  my  land- 
ing in  Hamburg  or  Bremen — the  immense  num- 
ber of  uniforms,  and  the  immense  number  of 
corpulent  men. 

65 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

'The  physiognomy  of  our  academic  youth  is 
strongly  marked  by  the  influence  of  social  drink- 
ing. I  am  a  university  professor,  and  when  I 
look  at  the  students  here  I  miss  the  inner  bright- 
ening up  of  youth,  and  the  ideal  transfiguration 
of  enthusiasm.  I  see  so  many,  many  spongy 
faces,  so  many  dough  faces.  The  cause  is  partly 
to  be  found  in  the  drinking  habits  of  the  uni- 
versity. 

"Have  your  ladies  ever  considered  the  fact 
that  they  can  go  out  a  night  alone  without 
male  protection  in  America,  vv^hile  they  can- 
not do  it  here?  The  American  girl  can  drive 
out  and  walk  with  young  men  just  as  she 
likes.  That  would  be  impossible  if  the  men 
were  drinkers.  The  freedom  of  women  in 
America  depends  on  the  almost  universal 
abstinence  in  those  circles  of  which  I  am 
speaking." 

German-American  Beer-Kultur 

Concerning  the  activities  of  organized  beer- 
Germans  in  America.  Dr.  Rauschcnbusch  speaks 
almost  bitterly  : 

"They  talk  a  great  deal  about  the  defense  of 
their  Germanism,  and  preventing  its  absorption 
by  American  'muckers'  (one  of  the  'muckiest' 
of  German  words,  which  could  perhaps  be  best 
translated  by  the  words  'canting  bigots'). 

"But  if  we  get  rid  of  the  phrases,  what  is  this 
Germanism  that  is  so  dear  to  them?  Is  it 
Schiller?  Is  it  Goethe?"  Is  it  Kant?  No!  It  is 
the  riglit  to  be  jolly,  with  cigars  and  beer." 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  tliat  the  use  of 
beer  in  Germany  has  aflFcctcd  favorably  the  rates 
of  alcoholism.  In  the  United  States,  in  1906, 
the  death  rate  from  alcoholism  was  6.2 ;  in 
Prussia  it  was  7.9 ;  in  Bavaria,  7.4. 

England  Tried  It 

The   Scientific   Temperance   Journal   has  pub- 
lished a  most  interesting  study  of  England's  ex- 
C6 


BEER— THE  INTERNATIONAL  BRUTE 

l)erience  in  trying  to  combat  the  stronger  alco- 
holic drinks  by  encouraging  beer.    It  says: 

In  1830,  England  tried  to  discourage  the  "gin 
places"  by  establishing  free  beer-shops  (that  is, 
shops  that  were  not  required  to  pay  license). 

A  few  weeks  after  the  passage  of  the  bill, 
Sidney  Smith  wrote:  "The  nezv  beer  bill  has  be- 
gun its  operations.  Everybody  is  drunk.  Those 
zi'ho  are  not  singing  are  spraivling." 

Parliament  twice  instituted  committees  of  in- 
quiry into  the  operation  of  the  Act.  The  Com- 
mittee of  the  House  of  Lords  in  1850  reported: 

"The  absolute  consumption  of  spirits 
(whisky,  etc.)  has,  from  whatever  cause,  far 
from  diminished;  the  comfort  and  morals  of 
the  poor  have  been  seriously  impaired." 

In  1843  t^"*^  Committee  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons concurred  with  the  Lords'  report,  and 
added :  'The  beer-shop  system  has  proved  a  fail- 
ure." 

In  1869  'The  Lower  House  of  Convocation  of 
the  Province  of  Canterbury,"  a  body  having 
ecclesiastical  supervision  of  more  than  14,000,- 
000  of  the  population,  adopted  the  report  of  its 
committee  of  investigation,  in  which  was  the 
statement:  "Of  the  direct  causes  of  our  national 
intemperance,  one  of  the  foremost  and  most 
prolific,  as  it  appears  to  your  committee,  is  the 
operation  of  the  Legislative  Act  which  called 
beer-houses  into  existence." 

The  plimax  of  the  testimony  was  added  from 
the  medical  standpoint  by  the  Lancet  in  1889, 
called  out  by  a  remark  made  by  Sir  Michael 
Hicks  Beach,  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  at  a 
dinner  of  the  Country  Brewers'  Association, 
where  he  was  a  guest.  After  telling  the  brewers 
that  thirty-one  gallons  of  beer  per  capita  were 
drunk  in  a  year,  Sir  Michael  said  that  he  rejoiced 
in  the  fact,  and  hoped  it  would  increase,  adding: 
'The  people  of  the  United  Kingdom  would  be 
better  off  if  more  beer  and  less  spirits  were 
drunk." 

^7 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

The  Lancet  published  a  protest  which  con- 
tained the  following  remark :  "Does  the  consump- 
tion of  more  beer  really  mean  the  consumption 
of  less  spirits  ?  Few  medical  men  will  admit  such 
an  opinion.  .  .  .  Beer  drinkers  are  by  no  means 
free  from  the  vice  of  spirit-drinking,  and  are 
certainly  not  infrequently  the  subjects  of  cirrho- 
sis (of  the  liver)." 

"We  commend  these  medical  facts  to  the 
consideration  of  the  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer," says  the  Lancet,  "and  all  who  are 
disposed  to  regard  beer  in  the  light  of  a 
temperance  drink  or  as  an  alternative  to  the 
use  of  spirits." 

Then  referring  to  the  historical  results  of  the 
idea,  the  Lancet  continued :  "We  may  remind 
them  that  this  view  has  once  or  twice  prevailed 
in  legislation  with  very  doubtful  effects.  One 
of  the  objects  of  the  free  beer-house  legislation 
in  1830  was  to  discourage  drinking  of  spirits  by 
encouraging  the  consumption  of  beer.  lUit  it 
failed  signally.  It  would  be  disastrous  if  any 
new  legislation  were  to  be  attempted  on  this 
principle." 

The  continuation  of  the  brewing  of  beer  after 
the  prohibition  of  whisky  making,  is  as  senseless 
as  it  is  unjust. 

William  Jennings  Bryan  never  said  anything 
better  than  this:  "The  trade  in  cHstilled  liquors 
and  the  trade  in  beer  have  been  partners  in  every 
crime ;  co-conspirators  in  every  plot.  They  have 
corrupted  politics  together,  boycotted  and  bulHed 
business  together,  protected  vice  and  gambling 
together.  It  woukl  be  cruel,  positively  cruel,  to 
separate  them  now.  They  should  die  together 
and  be  buried  in  the  same  grave." 


68 


X 

OUR  ALLIES 

The  part  played  by  drink  in  this  war  has  been 
a  varied  one.  It  was  prohibition  in  Russia  that 
enabled  that  country  to  mobilize  six  weeks  be- 
fore the  Germans  thought  mobilization  possible, 
and  France  was  saved.  The  Paris  correspond- 
ent of  the  (London)  Standard  relates  that  a  Ger- 
man general  take«  prisoner  quoted  the  Kaiser  as 
saying : 

"I  was  certain  of  crushing  the  Russians 
when  they  were  freely  given  to  drink,  but 
now  that  they  are  sober  the  task  is  much  more 
difficult."  And  he  added  in  a  melancholy 
tone,  "Who  on  earth  could  have  foreseen  the 
anti-alcohol  coup  d'etat  perpetrated  by 
Nicholas  II?" 

In  Belgium,  the  wine  cellars  helped  to  bring 
her  women  to  shame  unspeakable  and  her  ac- 
cumulated treasures  to  destruction.  The  cap- 
tured diaries  of  German  soldiers  tell  a  tale  of 
drunkenness  which  surely  must  be  taken  as  a 
partial  explanation  why  human  beings  could  be 
brought  to  carry  out  the  official  program  of 
bestiality  and  schrecklichkeit. 

''We  are  fighting  Germany,  Austria,  and  Drink, 
and  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  greatest  of  these 
three  deadly  foes  is  Drink,"  declared  Lloyd 
George ;  and  he  added  that  Drink  was  doing  Brit- 
ain more  damage  than  the  submarines. 

British  patriots  assert  that  the  war  would  be 
over  now  if  it  were  not  for  what  alcohol  has 
done  to  the  men  and  material  of  Britain. 

Drink,  the  Traitor 

*'You  cannot  hide  the  shadow  of  a  traitor  who 
stalks  across  the  nation  as  it  rocks  and  reels," 
69 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

says  Arthur  Mee  in  a  manifesto  issued  to  the 
British  people.  "During  the  past  fifty  years 
drink  has  deprived  this  country  of  man-power 
equivalent  to  the  whole  British  army  under  arms. 
We  are  drinking  away  our  strength.  For  every 
acre  that  we  give  to  growing  wheat  for  food, 
drink  takes  an  acre  for  destroying  food ;  the  land 
wasted  on  drink  in  this  country  would  make  a 
field  a  mile  wide  from  England  to  America  and 
this  on  an  island  which  grows  only  one  loaf  of 
every  six  it  eats. 

"The  labor  that  drink  has  stolen  from  this 
country  during  the  war  is  equivalent  to  the  whole 
United  Kingdom  standing  idle  for  a  hundred 
days.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  said  in  191 5  that  by 
stopping  drink  we  could  add  a  vast  army  of  men 
to  our  armament  works  without  spending  one 
penny  on  additional  construction,  without  putting 
down  a  single  additional  machine,  and  all  by  one 
act  of  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  nation.  The 
king  has  said,  Tt  is,  without  doubt,  largely  due 
to  drink  that  we  are  unable  to  secure  the  output 
of  war  material  indispensable  to  meet  the  require- 
ments of  our  army.' 

Money,  L.\bor,  Ships 

"Drink  and  its  results  cost  us  one  million 
pounds  a  day.  During  the  war  the  national  drink 
bill  has  reached  four  hundred  million  pounds. 
It'c  viiist  liaz'c  poured  more  of  our  financial 
strciii^tJi  into  this  trade  siiice  .iui^nst,  1914,  than 
li'c  have  fired  an'ay  in  France.  We  are  giving 
an  enemy  trade  the  power  to  waste  our  wealth, 
scatter  our  resources,  drain  our  people's  savings, 
and  break  down  our  reserves.  We  let  the  drink 
trade  use  hundreds  of  millions  of  cubic  feet  of 
space  in  ships,  congest  our  docks,  streets,  and 
railways,  use  up  the  labor  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  men.  We  have  not  men  enough  to 
carry  on  the  war,  but  we  have  men  enough  to 
lift  and  move  from  place  to  place  a  weight  of 
drink  stuff  every  year  three  times  as  heavy  as 
70 


OUR  ALLIES 

the  Great  Pyramid.  Tt  took  a  hundred  thousand 
men  a  generation  to  set  up  the  Cireat  IVramid, 
but  if  we  had  pulled  it  down  and  set  it  up  again 
three  times  since  war  began,  it  would  ha^e  taken 
less  labor  than  the  shifting  of  this  drink  stuff 
that  ships  pour  everlastingly  into  our  docks. 
Every  week  our  railways  carry  enough  of  it  to 
fill  over  a  thousand  trains  of  two  hundred  tons 
each. 

"We  shall  not  win  the  war  until  we  have  built 
a  trench  between  the  British  home  and  the  pub- 
lic house. 

The  Call  of  the  Lions 

''The  Prime  Minister  has  declared  that  this 
trade  has  sown  destruction  and  devastation  in 
time  of  peace,  and  in  war  has  done  us  more 
damage  than  all  the  German  submarines. 

"The  King  has  banished  alcohol  from  his 
palaces  as  a  traitor  to  the  state. 

"General  Joffre  has  declared  it  the  duty  of  all 
patriots  to  fight  alcohol  in  all  its  forms ;  by 
diminishing  the  moral  and  material  strength  of 
the  army,  it  is  a  crime  against  national  defense 
in  the  face  of  the  enemy. 

"Lord  Kitchener  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
drink  during  the  war,  and  begged  his  men  to 
keep  fit  by  leaving  it  alone. 

"Lord  Roberts,  in  almost  his  last  message  to 
the  nation,  declared  that  drink  was  prejudicial 
to  our  chance  of  victory. 

"Lord  Ciirzon  declared  that  drink  is  a  leprous 
spot  eating  into  the  life  of  our  people. 

"Lord  Rosebery  warned  us  long  ago  of  the 
time  that  is  now  come,  when,  if  the  state  did  not 
control  the  liquor  traffic,  the  liquor  traffic  would 
control  the  state. 

"Mr.  Chamberlain,  the  first  of  our  imperial 
statesmen,  declared  that  while  a  priest-ridden  na- 
tion is  to  be  pitied,  a  publican-ridden  nation  is  to 
be  despised. 

"Mr.  Bonar  Law  will  not  touch  alcohol,  and  is 
71 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

believed  to  be  in  favor  of  prohibition  during  the 
war. 

''Admiral  JcUicoe  declares  that  alcohol  is  the 
enemy  of  efficiency  and  reduces  the  efficiency  of 
shooting  by  one  third. 

"Lord  JVoIscIey  declared  that  drink  kills  more 
soldiers  than  all  the  new  weapons  of  warfare. 

''The  Czar  of  Russia  has  indicted  alcohol  as 
the  exploiter  of  the  ruin  of  his  people. 

"Admiral  Beatty  has  appealed  to  the  nation  to 
arouse  itself  from  its  languor,  and  it  can  hardly 
be  possible  that  the  drink  trade  was  not  in  his 
mind  when  he  said :  'The  nation  is  not  yet  aroused 
out  of  its  state  of  self-satisfaction.  When  our 
people  have  humility  and  prayer  in  their  hearts 
we  can  count  the  days  to  the  end.'  Xor  can  it 
have  been  out  of  Sir  IVilliam  Robertson's  mind 
when,  on  being  asked  what  the  church  could  do 
to  help  win,  he  said,  'Bishop,  make  the  nation 
more  religious.' 

Britain's  Brain  Indicts  Alcohol 

*'No  less  than  two  thousand  four  hundred 
forty-eight  of  Britain's  greatest  citizens  have 
signed  the  following  statement: 

"Drink  hinders  the  army;  it  is  the  cause  of 
grave  delay  with  munitions ;  it  keeps  thousands 
of  men  from  war  work  every  day,  and  makes 
good,  sober  workmen  second-rate. 

"It  Jianipcrs  the  nazy;  it  delays  transports, 
places  them  at  the  mercy  of  submarines,  slows 
repairs,  and  congests  docks. 

"It  threatens  our  mercantile  marine;  it  has 
absorbed  during  the  war  over  two  hundred  mil- 
lion cubic  feet  of  ship  space,  and  it  retards  the 
building  of  ships  to  replace  our  losses. 

"It  destroys  our  food  supplies:  during  the  war 
it  has  consumed  over  three  million  five  hundred 
thousand  tons  of  food,  with  sugar  enough  to  last 
the  nation  one  hundred  days.  It  uses  up  more 
sugar  than  the  army. 

"It  zi'astes  our  financial  strength;  since  the 
72 


OUR  ALLIES 

war  bei2;an  our  people  have  spent  on  alcohol  over 
four  hundred  million  pounds. 

'7/  dk'crts  the  nation's  strcn^i^th;  it  uses  five 
hundred  thousand  workers,  one  million  acres  of 
land,  and  one  million  five  hundred  thousand  tons 
of  coal  a  year ;  and  during  the  war  it  has  involved 
the  lifting  and  handling  on  road  and  rail  of  a 
weight  equal  to  fifty  million  tons. 

''It  shatters  our  moral  strength;  its  temptations 
to  women  involve  grave  dangers  to  children  and 
anxietv  to  thousands  of  soldiers." 

A  Wonderful  Company 

The  names  of  the  men  and  women  who  signed 
this  document  directed  to  the  British  government 
are  known  among  informed  people  the  world 
over. 

''There  are  men  who  have  been  ambassadors, 
commanded  squadrons,  built  ships,  made  guns, 
written  books,  painted  pictures,  carved  monu- 
ments, educated  children,  made  the  British  name 
illustrious  by  their  discoveries  and  investigations, 
administered  justice,  built  industries,  maintained 
national  health,  presided  over  public  bodies, 
shaped  laws,  and  advised  the  King  in  privy 
counsel. 

"One  of  them  saved  the  British  army  in  its 
retreat  from  Mons ;  nine  of  them  wear  the  V.  C. 
There  are  nearly  one  hundred  admirals  and  gen- 
erals and  one  hundred  fifty  other  army  officers. 
Many  of  them  represent  the  Red  Cross  or  the 
military  hospitals;  hundreds  are  controllers  of 
munitions  of  war,  scientific  directors  of  the 
science  of  munitions  training  schools.  A  hundred 
of  them  represent  Parliament,  the  Privy  Council, 
and  the  Imperial  Services.  A  hundred  more  stand 
for  literature,  art,  music,  and  the  stage,  and  hun- 
dreds represent  the  great  trades  and  industries 
and  finance.  There  are  two  hundred  baronets 
and  knights,  and  hundreds  of  men  distinguished 
in  municipal  life,  including  a  hundred  who  are, 
or  have  been,  mayors,  sheriffs,  deputy-lieutenants 
73 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

of  counties,  and  county  council  chairmen.  There 
are  representatives  of  every  university  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  the  principals  of  hundreds 
of  university  colleges  and  public  schools.  There 
are  sixty  or  seventy  Fellows  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety, and  twenty-five  members  or  associates  of 
the  Royal  Academy.  There  are  five  hundred 
magistrates  and  about  the  same  number  of  doc- 
tors, including  medical  officers  of  health  for 
nearly  one  third  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

Laurel-Crowned  Men 

"But  even  such  a  summary  as  this  can  hardly 
give  a  proper  conception  of  the  dignity  of  this 
list  of  names.  It  stands  for  the  intellectual  and 
industrial  strength  of  Britain.  At  the  head  of 
its  military  group  stands  a  general  on  active  serv- 
ice who  wears  the  Victoria  Cross,  another  wears 
the  D.  S.  O.,  another  whose  name  has  nmg  thru 
Europe  in  this  war.  At  the  head  of  its  munitions 
group  is  the  present  controller  of  shipping,  with 
the  chairman  of  the  Cunard  Line,  all  the  great 
shipbuilders,  and  such  a  man  as  the  late  Sir 
Hiram  Maxim.  At  the  head  of  the  imperial 
group  stands  Mscount  Bryce,  our  late  ambassador 
in  the  great  Rei)ublic  of  the  West,  with  Sir  Ernest 
Satow,  our  late  ambassador  to  our  gallant  ally 
in  the  East.  The  Order  of  Merit  which  X'iscount 
Bryce  represents  is  found  at  the  head  of  other 
groups  as  well ;  as  the  \'ictoria  Cross  heads  the 
list  of  soldiers,  so  the  Order  of  Merit  heads  the 
list  of  public  servants,  of  authors,  and  of  scien- 
tists. At  the  head  of  the  Literature  group  stands 
Thomas  Hardy,  with  the  Poet  Laureate  beside 
him ;  at  the  head  of  the  group  of  science  men 
stands  Sir  William  Crookes,  with  such  names 
following  as  Sir  E.  Ray  Lankester,  Sir  Xorman 
Lockyer,  and  Sir  Ernest  Rutherford. 

''For  Education  we  have  Dr.  Michael  Sadler, 
with  the  Master  of  P>alliol,  the  Provost  of  Oriel, 
and  hundreds  of  names  familiar  in  learning;  and 
when    we    come    to    Medicine    and    the    i'ui)lic 

74 


OUR  ALLIES 

FTealth,  we  find  Sir  Rickman  Godlee,  President 
of  the  Royal  Colleg"e  of  Surgeons,  with  such  men 
as  Sir  William  Osier  and  Sir  Edward  Shafer, 
and  most  of  our  physiologists  and  surgeons. 
There  are  men  here,  like  Patrick  Mason  and  Sir 
Ronald  Ross,  whose  work  has  saved  millions  of 
lives  thruout  the  world. 

And  Women  Also 

"And  there  are  not  men  only,  there  are  women 
and  organizations  too.  There  is  a  daughter  of 
Lord  Lansdowne  and  a  daughter  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone ;  a  sister  of  Lord  Kitchener  and  a  sister  of 
Lord  French ;  there  is  the  wife  of  the  late  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  the  wife  of  the 
present  Prime  Minister  (a  curious  thing  is  that, 
waiting  for  ]\Ir.  Lloyd  George  as  he  came  home 
on  his  first  day  as  Premier  was  this  appeal  from 
his  wife,  in  company  with  thousands  of  the  most 
distinguished  people  in  the  nation,  pleading  that 
Britain  might  be  put  at  full  strength).  There 
are  all  the  greatest  leaders  of  the  great  Y.  M.  C. 
A.,  the  heads  of  the  Salvation  Army  and  the 
Church  Army,  and  men  and  women  who  stand 
for  the  will  of  the  masses  of  the  people — such 
names  we  find  as  Mrs.  Snowden,  Mrs.  Sidney 
Webb,  Mr.  George  Lansbury,  Mr.  Thomas  Burt, 
M.P.,  Mr.  Richards,  M.P. ;  the  Secretary  of  the 
Miners'  Federation;  such  miners  M.P.'s  as  Mr. 
J.  G.  Hancock,  Mr.  Finney,  and  Mr.  Galbraith. 
Tho  the  Memorial  stands  chiefly  outside  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  M.  P.'s  on  this  list  represent  about  five 
millions  of  the  population,  and  several  of  them 
are  members  of  the  government. 

*'No  charge  of  narrow  fanaticism  can  be 
brought  against  a  document  like  this.  It  speaks 
for  the  brain-power  of  the  British  people,  and  it 
asks  for  immediate  and  total  prohibition  of  the 
liquor  trade  as  long  as  the  war  lasts." 

In  heroic  France,  "where  wine  has  solved 
the  problem,"  the  Temps  has  this  to  say :  "Un- 
75 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

touched  by  the  almost  universal  ruin,  the 
seller  of  alcohol  is  continuing  to  serve  out  the 
poison  which  is  undermining  the  race.  Side 
by  side  with  the  horrors  of  war  we  suffer  the 
horrors  of  alcohol.  During  war  time  un- 
doubtedly the  sole  use  of  alcohol  should  be 
for  the  manufacture  of  explosives.  Let  us 
send  this  poison  over  to  the  enemy's  lines  in 
the  shape  of  shells.  We  shall  then  save 
France  while  killing  her  enemies." 

Alcohol  is  blamed  by  leading  French  scientists 
for  the  depopulation  of  France  which  encouraged 
Germany  to  attack.  One  third  of  the  deaths  in 
hospitals  and  asylums  of  Paris  have  been  due  to 
alcoholism.  In  an  official  proclamation  Dr. 
Debove,  dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Medicine  of  Paris, 
and  Dr.  Faisans,  physician  to  the  principal  gen- 
eral hospital,  said : 

"Alcoholism  is  chronic  poisoning,  resulting 
from  the  habitual  use  of  alcohol  even  when  not 
taken  in  amounts  sufficient  to  produce  drunken- 
ness. The  so-called  hygienic  drinks  (wine,  beer, 
and  cider)  also  contain  alcohol.  Alcoholism  is 
one  of  the  most  frightful  scourges  of  the  nation." 
This  was  an  official  proclamation. 

On  the  walls  of  every  post  office  in  France, 
and  in  the  tram  cars,  may  be  found  a  poster  ap- 
proved by  yi.  Clemcntel,  minister  of  coiumerce, 
and  signed  by  the  President  of  the  Republic. 
This  poster  was  placed  under  the  direction  of 
the  under  secretary  of  the  Health  Service  and 
was  issued  AI^^Tl^R  the  prohi])itinn  of  absinthe. 
It  reads: 

"To  French  Women  and  to  Young  French- 
men : 

"DRINK  IS  AS  MUCH  YOUR  ENEMY 
AS  GERMANY. 

"Since  1870  it  has  cost  France  in  men  and 
money  much  more  than  the  present  war. 

"Drinkers    age    quickly.      They    lose    half 
their   normal    life,   and    fall    easy   victims   to 
many  infirmities  and  illnesses. 
76 


OUR  ALLIES 

"The  seductive  drinks  of  your  parents  re- 
appear in  their  offspring  as  great  hereditary 
evils.  France  owes  to  alcohol  a  great  many 
mad  men  and  women  and  consumptives,  and 
most  of  her  criminals. 

"Drink  decreases  by  two-thirds  our  national 
production;  it  raises  the  cost  of  living  and 
increases  poverty. 

"In  imitation  of  the  criminal  Kaiser,  drink 
decimates  and  ruins  France,  to  the  great  de- 
light of  Germany. 

"Mothers,  young  men,  young  girls,  wives! 
Up  and  act  against  drink  in  memory  of  those 
who  have  gloriously  died  or  suffered  wounds 
for  the  Fatherland!  You  will  thus  accom- 
plish a  mission  as  great  as  that  of  our  heroic 
soldiers." 

How,  then,  do  the  brewers  dare  to  stay  our 
avenging  arm  and  point  to  the  French  toleration 
of  wine  and  beer  as  the  ideal  for  America?  It 
requires  impudence  almost  unbelievable.  The 
average  brewer  has  so  much  gall  that  one  must 
wonder  how  he  finds  room  for  his  lungs  and  his 
liver. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  our  allies  have 
done  nothing  to  put  down  this  internal  enemy. 
France  has  entirely  prohibited  absinthe.  Great 
Britain  has  decreased  the  production  of  beer  and 
has  put  into  effect  the  most  stringent  regulation 
of  sales.  And  Russia,  remembers  that  prohibition 
saved  civilization's  cause  and  she  clings  to  it. 

In  1912  the  Russian  people  saved  in  their  banks 
or  deposited  in  securities  just  over  $20,000,000, 
in  1913  not  quite  so  much.  In  the  first  eight 
months  of  1914  they  took  out  $55,000,000  more 
than  they  paid  in.  Then  came  the  war  and  pro- 
hibition, and  in  the  first  four  months  of  the  war, 
with  no  vodka  to  lure  their  money  from  them, 
they  poured  $70,000,000  into  the  banks.  In  191 5 
they  saved  $405,000,000,  and  the  Budget  for  19 17 
gives  us  their  savings  to  September,  19 16,  when 
they  had  reached,  with  securities,  over  $750,000,- 
17 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

ooo.     The  figures  of  saving  and  deposits  of  se- 
curities are  hard  to  believe;  look  at  them  again: 

Last  eight  months  of  vodka,  net  loss  of $55,000,000 

First  four  months  of  prohibition,  savings  of  70,000,000 

First  full  year  of  prohibition,  savings  of  405,000,000 

First  nine  months   of   1916,  savings  of...  755,000,000 

In  two  years  Russia  recovered  her  lost  revenue 

and  enriched  her  people.     There  has  been  noth- 
ing like  this  in  the  history  of  the  world  before. 

Germany,  in  her  efforts  to  undermine  Russian 
courage  and  integrity,  has  made  free  use  of  drink. 
Alcohol  has  been  offered  to  the  Russian  troops 
upon  every  occasion  of  fraternization  and  when 
the  Germans  have  retreated  in  recent  months, 
they  have  taken  care  to  leave  behind  them  large 
quantities  of  beer  and  spirits. 


78 


XI 

THAT  AMERICA  MAY  BE  STRONG 

When  the  President  read  his  immortal  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  caUing  the  country  to  sacrifice 
and  honor,  the  Hons  of  the  old  breed  stirred  them- 
selves in  every  corner  of  the  land.  From  the 
East  and  the  South  and  the  West,  the  big  men, 
the  makers  and  builders  of  the  nation,  the  cap- 
tains of  hundreds  and  the  captains  of  thousands, 
turned  their  faces  toward  Washington,  there  to 
offer  their  property  and  their  lives  and — more 
nearly  priceless — their  brain  power,  to  the  serv- 
ice of  the  nation. 

We  entered  the  war  with  great  advantages. 
We  had  seen  the  errors  of  our  allies  and  our 
enemies.  Even  the  poorest  and  humblest  realized 
vividly  our  unpreparedness  and  just  as  vividly 
the  necessity  for  unity  among  the  nations  oppos- 
ing the  empire  which  had  prepared  the  world's 
murder  for  forty  years.  More  vivid  still  was 
the  universal  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  nation 
must  shake  itself,  arouse  every  energy,  cast  aside 
every  weakness  and  exert  from  the  very  be- 
ginning the  full  power  of  its  resources.  Of  some 
things  we  felt  assured.  We  knew  that  the 
sons  of  the  men  who  breasted  the  leaden  sleet 
of  Cold  Harbor  and  marched  with  unfalter- 
ing step  up  the  steeps  of  Gettysburg  could  be 
depended  upon  to  do  anything  for  which 
naked  valor  suffices.  But  of  our  ability  to  con- 
tinue our  pleasures  and  extravagances — above  all, 
our  vices — and  still  sustain  the  immense  labors 
of  a  war  fought  with  machines  and  industries, 
w^e  not  only  felt  doubt  but  absolute  skepticism. 

So  the  big  men,  the  *'dollar-a-year  men,"  left 
79 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

their  vast  incomes  and  vast  private  interests  and 
hastened  to  Washington,  saying:  "Now  let  Effi- 
ciency rule;  let  us  save  blood  and  treasure  by 
losing  our  vices  and  weaknesses ;  let  everything 
be  decided  in  the  light  of  facts  alone."  And,  to 
the  last  man,  they  were  for  immediate,  absolute 
prohibition  as  the  very  first  essential  food  of 
efficiei^cy.  Hoover  was  for  it  to  conserve  food. 
The  great  employers  were  for  it  to  conserve  man- 
power. The  transportation  chiefs  were  for  it  to 
conserve  transportation.  The  economists  were 
for  it  to  conserve  all  that  is  summed  up  under  the 
term,  "Aloney !" 

The  War  Prohibition  Committee,  headed  by 
Professor  Irving  Fisher,  of  Yale,  undertook  the 
preparation  of  a  memorial  for  war  prohibition, 
to  be  signed  by  one  thousand  out-standing  Amer- 
icans. Telegrams  authorizing  signatures  poured 
in  like  a  flood.  Only  by  an  effort  was  the  roll 
restricted  to  one  thousand  names.  When  com- 
pleted, the  document  was  even  more  distinguished 
in  its  patronage  than  the  "Strength  of  Britain 
Memorial."  Inventors  and  authors,  public  men 
and  industrial  leaders,  bankers  and  economists 
had  not  only  signed  but  had  accompanied  their 
signatures  with  the  most  earnest  declarations. 
Luther  Burbank,  the  genius  of  the  West,  was 
there  in  the  company  of  Elbert  Gary,  head  of  the 
mighty  steel  industry.  John  D.  Rockefeller.  Jr. ; 
Darwin  P.  Kingsley.  of  the  New  York  Life  In- 
surance Comi)any ;  Frederick  Frclinghuysen,  of 
the  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Company — all  called 
for  absolute  wiping  out  of  the  vampire  trade  in 
order  that  America  might  be  strong  for  her  great 
task.  F.  A.  Vanderlip,  who,  under  McAdoo, 
shared  the  honors  of  the  great  Second  Liberty 
Loan,  president  of  New  York's  most  important 
bank,  was  there  with  Davitl  Forgan.  head  of 
Chicago's  mightiest  financial  institution.  George 
W.  Cable  and  Booth  Tarkington  were  there  in 
the  company  of  many  other  literary  masters. 
Orville  Wright  and  Simon  Lake,  but  for  whose 
80 


THAT  AMERICA  MAY  BE  STRONG 

inspired  genius  this  war  would  not  have  known 
the  aeroplane  and  the  submarine ;  Dr.  W.  J. 
Mayo,  the  country's  most  distinguished  surgeon  ; 
W.  J.  Ilarahan,  president  of  the  Seaboard  Air 
Line  Railroad ;  and  Howard  Elliott,  president  of 
the  New  York,  New  Haven,  and  Hartford,  were 
there.  John  Wanamaker,  merchant  king;  Ray 
Stannard  Baker,  the  writer ;  P.  P.  Claxton, 
United  States  commissioner  of  education ; 
Herreshoff,  builder  of  cup-defending  yachts ; 
Robert  Babson,  the  financial  and  statistical  au- 
thority ;  Albert  J.  Stone,  vice-president  of  the  Erie 
Railroad;  J.  M.  Gruber,  vice-president  of  the 
Great  Northern ;  Dr.  H.  W.  Wiley,  the  pure-food 
expert;  Dr.  Howard  Kelly,  the  surgeon;  Miss 
Jane  Addams ;  A.  W.  Harris,  the  great  banker  of 
Chicago;  Dr.  Irving  Fisher,  the  leading  econo- 
mist of  America ;  Dr.  George  Blumer,  of  Yale ; 
and  Professor  Winfield  Scott  Hall,  of  Northwes- 
tern ;  William  Jennings  Bryan  and  Frederick 
Palmer,  the  war  correspondent — of  such  was  the 
roster  of  that  memorial. 

"It  is  not  wise  to  starve  the  people  in  order 
to  make  them  drunk,"  said  William  Jennings 
Bryan,  and  Theodore  Roosevelt  declared  that 
for  the  period  of  the  war  not  a  bushel  of  grain 
should  be  turned  from  food  into  intoxicants. 
"To  tolerate  the  drink  trade  in  time  of  war  is 
nothing  less  than  stealing  bread  from  our  sol- 
diers," declared  another  former  President, 
William  Howard  Taft.  We  can  give  only  the 
gist  of  a  few  of  the  flood  of  telegrams  which 
swept  in  upon  Congress : 

"Profoundly  for  war-time  prohibition." — 
Luther  Burbank,  the  "Plant  Wizard." 

"In  favor  of  national  prohibition  during  the 
war  and  forever  after." — David  R.  Forgan,  City 
National  Bank,  Chicago. 

"Sale  of  liquor  should  be  prohibited." — 
Simon  Lake,  inventor  of  the  submarine. 

"Conditions  loudly  call  for  diversion  of  food- 
stuffs from  distilleries,  breweries,  and  bars  to 
8i 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

grist  mills,  bakeries,  and  breakfast  tables." — 
Louis  F.  Post,  Assistant  Secretary  of  Labor. 

"flavor  national  prohibition  during  the  war  to 
prevent  disease,  save  food  wasted  in  the  manu- 
facture of  liquor,  and  promote  national  efficiency." 
— B.  F.  Harris,  president  First  National  Bank, 
Champaign,  Illinois. 

"War  prohibition  a  necessity." — Booth  Tark- 
ington,  novelist. 

'*No  greater  saving  financially  and  in  man- 
hood could  be  made  than  war  prohibition.  Every 
bushel  of  grain  used  to  make  liquor  takes  bread 
from  the  poor." — Richard  H.  Edmonds,  editor 
Manufacturers'  Record,  Baltimore,  Maryland. 

"Entire  Interurban  Clinical  Club  approve  na- 
tional prohibition." — Dr.  George  Blumer,  Dean 
Medical  Department,  Yale  University. 

"For  economic  reasons  as  well  as  others, 
strongly  favor  national  prohibition." — C.  C. 
Chesney,  Manager  General  Electric  Company, 
New  Haven,  Connecticut. 

"Favor  well-defined  war  prohibition." — J.  P. 
Reeves,  Treasurer  Chicago  and  Eastern  Rail- 
road Company,  Chicago. 

"I  am  for  nation-wide  prohibition  as  a  war 
measure,  because  of  effect  on  food,  economic  and 
health  conditions." — W.  A.  Evans,  Editor  of 
Health  Department,  Chicago  Tribune,  Chi- 
cago. 

"Highly  approve  of  natii^nal  pr(iliil)iti(in." — 
N.  C.  Herreshoff,  President  Herreshoff  Boat 
Company,  and  Marine  Engineer,  Bristol,  R.  L 

"National  prohibition  absi^lutely  essential  to 
preserve  foo(l  supply." — John  T.  Stone,  Presi- 
dent Maryland  Casualty  Company,  Baltimore, 
Maryland. 

"Statistics  show  clearly  that  the  Cnited  States 
should  immediately  adopt  national  prohiliition  as 
a  war  measure." — Roger  W.  Babson,  Babson*s 
Statistical  Organization,  Wellesley  Hill, 
Massachusetts. 

"Favor  war  prohibition.  Effect  on  health, 
82 


THAT  AMERICA  MAY  BE  STRONG 

efficiency,and  national  economy  would  be  great." 
— Howard  Elliott,  President  New  York,  New 
Haven,  and  Hartford  Railroad. 

"National  prohibition  during  war  has  unquali- 
fied approval." — J.  H.  Wesson,  President 
Smith  &  Wesson,  Springfield,  Massachusetts. 

"Favor  war  prohibition  as  measure  of  economy 
and  efficiency." — John  Crosby,  Washburn 
Crosby  Company,  Minneapolis. 

"Unqualifiedly  for  national  prohibition." — 
Charles  K.  Haddon,  Vice-President  Victor 
Talking  Machine  Company,  Camden,  N.  J. 

"Seriousness  of  the  task  before  us  demands 
prohibition  to  conserve  food  supply,  raise  effi- 
ciency of  the  nation,  and  open  far  richer  sources 
of  revenue." — F.  A.  Vanderlip,  President  City 
National  Bank,  New  York  City. 

"Firmly  believe  national  prohibition  would  be 
of  great  benefit." — Samuel  S.  Childs,  President 
Childs  Restaurant  Company. 

"Prohibition  would  enormously  reduce  disease, 
would  save  food  now  wasted  and  promote  na- 
tional productiveness  more  than  a  dozen  other 
measures." — John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  Chair- 
man Rockefeller  Foundation. 

"I  strongly  favor  national  prohibition  during 
the  war." — Frederick  Palmer,  author,  corre- 
spondent with  the  British  Army  and  Fleet, 
1914-16,  New  York. 

America's  brain  was  and  is  unreservedly  for 
prohibition.  Back  of  these  mighty  leaders  stand 
at  least  two  thirds  of  the  common  people  who  can 
only  give  their  sons  to  die  and  their  women  to 
wait  that  America's  freedom  may  be  once  more 
countersigned  in  the  red  blood  of  her  children. 

Why,  then,  are  we  to-day  wasting  treasure 
and  sacrificing  lives  in  the  interest  of  a  German- 
ized trade  ?  The  President  has  power,  under  the 
food  bill,  to  wipe  out  the  manufacture  of  beer. 
Why  does  he  not  do  it? 

The  people  of  this  country  have  not  yet  grasped 
83 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

the  fact  that  the  wet  politicians  of  the  skims  hold 
the  balance  of  power  in  Congress  and  have 
threatened  to  hamstring  the  government  if  the 
brewers  are  molested.  Nor  do  they  realize  how 
ignorance  and  vice  have  been  mobilized  in  de- 
fense of  this  trade.  There  is  only  one  thing  that 
will  loose  the  might  of  this  nation  and  let  it  go 
to  the  battlefield  and  to  victory.  That  thing  is 
the  arousing  of  such  a  sentiment,  such  an  over- 
whelming, outspoken,  fighting  sentiment,  that  the 
President  will  feel  at  his  back  the  fearless  con- 
science of  the  great  patriotic  masses  in  support 
unquestionably  strong  enough  to  justify  him  in 
defying  Tammany,  defying  the  slums,  defying  the 
German-American  Alliance  and  the  United  States 
Brewers'  Association. 

The  days  are  passing.  The  hour  draws  near 
when  the  United  States  must  choose  between 
passing  under  the  yoke  of  the  brewers  and  the 
pro-Germans,  or  striking  hands  with  the  men 
who  represent  the  brain  and  brawn,  the 
genius  and  material  with  which  we  can  WIN 
THIS  WAR! 


84 


XII 
THE  CALL  OF  THE  CRISIS 

Prohibition  for  the  war  would  awaken  the 
people  of  the  United  States  as  nothhig  else  will. 

The  government  cannot  avoid  impugning  its 
own  sincerity  when  it  officially  asks  the  women 
to  omit  fashion  for  the  period  of  the  war  in 
order  to  release  labor  now  engaged  in  the  useless 
work  of  making  feniinine  fripperies ;  but  fails 
to  call  for  the  release  of  the  labor  engaged  in  the 
worse  than  useless  work  of  making  beer.  It  is 
folly  for  the  government  to  continue  to  ask  the 
women  and  little  ones  of  the  country  to  deprive 
themselves  of  food,  if  it  does  not  dare  to  ask  the 
men  of  the  country  to  deprive  themselves  of  beer. 

The  people  are  willing  to  go  hungry  to  win 
this  war;  but  they  are  not  willing  to  go  hungry 
in  order  that  the  brewers  may  add  to  their  in- 
famous fortunes. 

It  will  avail  nothing  to  tell  the  American  peo- 
ple to  become  serious  in  this  war  until  the  govern- 
ment has  become  serious.  The  people  say :  ''O 
well,  they  talk;  but  they  don't  mean  it.  If  we 
were  in  a  serious  situation,  they  wouldn't  let  the 
brewers  rot  this  grain  and  misuse  labor  and  waste 
railroad  cars  and  put  a  brake  on  everything." 
War  prohibition  would  come  as  a  flash  of  white 
lightning  in  a  black  sky.  The  mind  of  the  peo- 
ple would  be  cleared  in  a  twinkling.  They  would 
know  that  we  are  in  deadly  peril,  and  that  we  are 
going  to  meet  that  peril  as  men  who  will  wrest 
victorv  from  fate  itself. 

THE  DRINK  TRADE  IS  A  TRAITOR.  It 
has  been  a  traitor  in  Great  Britain  and  France. 

IT  IS  A  TRAITOR  IN  AMERICA  TO- 
DAY.   , 

85 


THE  WOODEN  HORSE 

We  do  not  need  beer;  but  we  do  need  chloro- 
form and  ether  and  industrial  alcohol.  We  do 
need,  the  breweries  to  pack  meat  and  bottle  fruit 
juices  and  produce  milk  products.  But  they  are 
not  content  with  legitimate  trade  and  legitimate 
profits. 

WE  CANT  BEAT  GERMANY  UNTIL 
WE  HAVE  BEATEN  BEER. 

IT  IS  DEADLY  MOCKERY  TO  ASK  OUR 
BOYS  TO  DIE  FOR  US  UNTIL  WE  ARE 
WILLING  TO  GO  DRY  FOR  THEM. 

The  law  which  prohibits  the  sale  of  liquor  to 
any  man  in  uniform  is  a  good  one ;  but  to-day 
armies  are  not  fighting  armies — nations  are  fight- 
ing nations.  Why  put  all  the  sacrifice  upon  the 
soldier  and  the  sailor?  LET  US  NOW  HA\'E 
A  LAW  WHICH  WILL  PROHIBIT  THE 
SALE  OF  LIQUOR  TO  ANY  MAN  IN 
CIVILIAN  CLOTHES.  The  man  who  is 
selected  to  go  must  spill  his  blood  for  victory ; 
let  the  man  who  is  selected  to  stay  at  least  spill 
his  beer  for  the  soldier. 

The  country  must  act  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  war  is  on  for  long  years,  requiring  every 
cent  of  available  money,  every  pound  of  avail- 
able food,  every  ounce  of  available  labor,  and 
every  unit  of  brain  power.  It  will  not  do  to  learn 
our  lesson  to-morrow ;  it  must  be  learned  to-day 
in  order  that  we  may  immediately  wield  our 
full  strength,  for  to-morrow  is  the  day  of  battle. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  or  not  prohi- 
bition will  be  adopted  for  the  war ;  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  whether  it  will  be  adopted  now,  or  after 
scandal,  preventable  disease,  lost  labor,  misused 
transportation  facilities  and  mounting  food  prices, 
have  caused  the  people  to  blaze  with  white-hot 
wrath. 

Every  saloon  is  an  enemy  fort ;  every  brewery 
a  national  menace,  every  bonded  warehouse  an 
arsenal  for  our  foe,  as  long  as  it  turns  food  into 
poison. 

In  the  name  of  all  that  American  men  and 
86 


THE  CALL  OF  THE  CRISIS 

women  hold  sacred,  in  the  name  of  the  principles 
we  have  won,  and  the  principles  we  cherish,  in 
the  name  of  that  honor  which  will  be  blasted  if 
in  our  might  we  do  less  than  what  we  should  do, 
we  call  upon  the  President  of  the  United  States 
nozv  to  exercise  the  power  vested  in  him  to  stop 
the  manufacture  of  beer.  He  should  commandeer 
every  gallon  of  whisky  and,  by  redistillation,  make 
it  an  agency  of  victory  instead  of  an  agency  of 
defeat.  In  the  name  of  all  these  things,  and 
more,  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  should 
immediately  close  every  saloon  for  the  period  of 
the  war. 

There  is  a  way  to  win  this  war;  and  that  is, 
to  call  the  nation  to  a  recognition  of  its  foes 
without  and  within  and  to  that  full  and  free 
action  which  can  alone  give  victory. 

There  is  also  a  way  to  lose  the  war.  Let 
the  people  get  the  impression  that  the  government 
is  afraid  of  slackers,  draft  resisters,  and  the  beer 
trade.  Let  the  government  continue  to  exhort 
the  women  to  save  crumbs  and  permit  the  brewers 
to  waste  loaves.  Let  the  espionage  and  anti- 
American  propaganda  now  sheltering  in  the 
shadow  of  the  brewery  continue  undisturbed. 

Shall  we  win  or  lose? 


^ 


XIII 

LEST  HAPLY  WE   SHOULD  BE  FOUND 
FIGHTING  AGAINST  GOD 

God  Almighty  still  rules.  He  has  not  vacated 
the  throne  of  the  universe.  He  carries  out  his 
will  by  human  leaders.  Nations  are  his  agents. 
They  have  no  immortal  souls.  Their  righteous- 
ness is  to  be  rewarded  and  their  sins  punished  in 
this  life.  Where  in  all  history  did  a  nation  sin 
and  escape  its  just  penalty? 

What  is  the  greatest  sin  against  God  and  man 
in  the  twentieth  century?  The  turning  of  God's 
great  gift — our  daily  bread — into  human  poison  ; 
the  debauching  and  damning  of  the  hundreds  of 
millions  by  habit-forming  drugs — opium,  vodka, 
absinthe,  wine,  beer,  hasheesh,  ale,  rum,  and 
whisky. 

We  do  not  understand  God's  purpose  in  this 
unspeakable  world-wide  war.  But  if  it  is  to  wipe 
the  liquor  traffic  and  all  drug  poison  trades  from 
the  planet,  may  America  speedily  see  the  light, 
line  up  with  the  Divine  purpose,  and  enact  na- 
tional prohibition  before  it  is  forever  too  late ;  lest, 
haply,  by  refusing  we  should  be  found  fighting 
against  God ! 

— Clarence  True  Wilson. 


88 


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